A thermal model of the human body exposed to an electromagnetic field

The human body was modeled by numerical procedures to determine the thermal response under varied electromagnetic (EM) exposures. The basic approach taken was to modify the heat transfer equations for man in air to account for thermal loading due to the energy absorbed from the EM field. The human body was represented in an EM model by a large number of small cubical cells of tissue, and the energy density was determined for each cell. This information was then analyzed by a thermal response model consisting of a series of two-dimensional transient conduction equations with internal heat generation due to metabolism, internal convective heat transfer due to blood flow, external interaction by convection and radiation, and cooling of the skin by sweating and evaporation. This model simulated the human body by a series of cylindrical segments. The local temperature of 61 discrete locations as well as the thermoregulatory responses of vasodilatation and sweating were computed for a number of EM field intensities and two frequencies, one near whole-body resonance.