International Journal of Applied Electromagnetics and Mechanics 25 (2007) 413–417 413 IOS Press Induced currents into the human body by cooking induction systems: The new european standard EN 50366 Riccardo Scorretti, Nicolas Siauve and No¨ el Burais Centre de G´ enie El´ ectrique de Lyon (CEGELY), Universit ´ e Lyon 1, 43 bld. du 11 Nov. 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne, France E-mail: first name.last name@ec-lyon.fr Abstract. The dosimetry of the induced currents into the human body by the magnetic field generated by a cooking induction system is studied using the finite element method, in the same operating conditions defined in the recent standard EN 50366. In order to improve the accuracy and reduce the computational time, the problem is splitted into two computations (the radiating system alone, the human body alone) by using a special formulation for the human body. 1. Introduction The problem of the dosimetry of induced currents into the human body by electrical appliances is of a major interest, both from theoretical point of view (possible effects of electromagnetic fields on the human health) but also for its practical applications (assessment of conformity to industrial standards). The numerical modelling is an important tool, in that it allows to simulate different configurations, whereas a direct in vivo measurement would be very difficult owing to the extremely weak levels of the induced currents. In this work, the finite elements (FE) method is used to quantify the induced currents into the body by a cooking induction system. Indeed, the design of such a system is particularly complicated, owing to the presence a large air-gap (the ceramic top is at least 6 mm thick) in the magnetic circuit. Two opposite requirements have to be fulfilled: on one hand the magnetic field must be strong enough to achieve good performances, but on the other hand the leakage field must not overcome the admitted safety limits [1]. Recently the standard EN 50366 [2], which aims to establish a protocol to check the compliance of householder appliances with the European Council recommendation 1999/519/EC, has been approved by the CENELEC. As in the previous ICNIRP recommendations [1], some reference levels for the flux density are defined. The respect of these levels, under the given operating conditions, should ensure that the basic restrictions on the induced current are respected. Even if the reference levels and basic restrictions defined in these two documents are the same (B RL =6.25 µT, J BR  40 mA/m 2 at 20 kHz) a major difference exists: the reference levels defined in the ICNIRP recommendations have been computed upon the assumption of maximum coupling between the human body and the magnetic field (i.e. the magnetic field is supposed to be homogeneous), whereas the standard EN 50366 allows to take into account the inhomogeneous distribution of the magnetic field by a multiplicative coupling 1383-5416/07/$17.00  2007 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved