[Exposure of workers to electric and magnetic fields from radiofrequency dielectric heaters to process polyvinyl...

Exposure of workers to electric and magnetic fields from radiofrequency dielectric heaters (RF heaters) to process polyvinyl chloride material was surveyed. Measurements of electric and magnetic field strengths were made in 10 workers operating 7 RF heaters at 3 plants in Japan. Six of the RF heaters are of the sewing machine type and the other is of the shuttle tray type. In all the RF heaters surveyed the nominal frequency of the radiofrequency generator was 40 MHz, and therefore electric and magnetic field from these are assumed to oscillate at the same frequency. The power output ranged from 0.83 W to 1.8 W for the sewing machine type and was 2.4 W for this shuttle tray type. Measurements were made at about 5 cm from the surface of the hand, eye, chest, waist, knee and foot of each worker. The meter readings were converted to equivalent plane wave power density and corrected for duty cycle (0.073 to 0.27). It was found that all the workers surveyed were exposed to electric and magnetic field strengths greater than the TLV recommended by ACGIH (1 mW/cm2). For the hand, eye, chest, waist, knee and foot of the worker, 95%, 63%, 32%, 47% and 36% and 27% of the measured field strengths exceeded the TLV, respectively. Especially for the sewing machine type RF heaters, electric fields at the hand and eye were extremely strong. Thus, for the hand, 100%, 75% and 38% of the measured electric field strengths exceeded the TLV, ten times the TLV, and one hundred times the TLV, respectively, and for the eye, 88% and 25% exceeded the TLV and ten times the TLV, respectively. No correlation was observed between power output of the RF heaters and measured electric and magnetic field strengths at any anatomical site of the worker.