Electricmagnetic field exposure assessment on live line workers

There is a growing concern among public regarding possible health hazards due to the exposure to power frequency electric and electromagnetic fields. Limited knowledge and information available for workers as well as general public tends to magnify intensively the risk of exposure to extremely low frequency electromagnetic field. This paper presents an exposure assessment study for live line worker exposed to transmission line power frequency electric field. A real double circuit transmission line is selected. Practical exposure scenarios which represent actual working conditions for live-line worker has been identified. Charge simulation method and the Biot-Savart law have been used for computation of external electric and magnetic fields. Finite Difference Time Difference (FDTD) technique was used to calculate the organs internal induced electric field and circulating current densities. A comparison between the values of internal exposure to power frequency electromagnetic field, with the allowable exposure limits set by different international standards is presented. The study concluded that the levels of workers exposures to extremely low frequency electric field are below the recommended international standards limits for the scenarios considered in this paper.