Evaluation of environmental low frequency magnetic fields in occupational exposure

Abstract

Concerned by possible professional health risk due to occupational exposure to electromagnetic fields, the European legislative body issued a successive series of official documents on working electromagnetic environment provisions, starting with the Directive 2004/40/EC. The Directive was initially to be carried into law in all Member States of the European Union by 2008 but was postponed twice: first time until 30 April 2012 by the European Directive 2008/46/EC and then, for a second time, until 31 October 2013. The European Commission finally repealed Directive 2004/40/EC on 29 June 2013, and published Directive 2013/35/EU on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents (electromagnetic fields); from that publication date, Member States have been given 3 years to transpose the Directive. Under the enforcements of the EC official document, the employers or other responsible administrative will have to evaluate electromagnetic emissions around sources and to map/advertize/organize the access zones in order to prevent the hazardous exposure of their personnel (professional exposure) and visitors (general exposure). One could easily observe that employers are subjected to very restrictive obligations under the Directive; furthermore, professional assistance (available technical tools and qualified professionals for measurement and computation of environmental electromagnetic fields) currently involves high expenses. More accessible technical solutions are consequently challenging. The paper follows the objective of illustrating practical issues on magnetic field assessment and reduction in working environments by measurements and computation.