Temperature Increase in Human Heads Due to Different Models of Cellular Phones

Abstract

The temperature increase in a realistic human head model exposed to five different cellular phone models is investigated by a bioheat equation and the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method at 900 and 1800 MHz, respectively. These five cellular phone models are greatly differ from each other in structure. The realistic human head model is used to investigate the temperature increase in the head affected by varying factors including; electric properties of human head tissues, hand absorption power effect, cellular phone models, homogeneous and inhomogeneous head models, cellular phone material, and the distance between the cellular phone and the head. Computed results show that the temperature increase in the head reaches the steady-state value for exposure time of about 20 minutes. For worst-case, the maximum temperature increase in the head is found to be 0.19° C at 900 MHz and 0.055° C at 1800 MHz for the inhomogeneous human head with six tissues exposed to a metallic handset held by a hand, with antenna output power of 0.6 W and 0.125 W, respectively. The maximum temperature increase in the head is far less than the threshold temperature increase of 4.5° C which can cause neuron damage.