Influence of relative humidity on analyzing electric field exposure using ELF electric field measurements

The objective of the study was to investigate the influence of humidity on analyzing electric field exposure using extremely low frequency (ELF) electric field measurements. The study included 322 measurements in a climate room. We used two commercial three-axis meters, EFA-3 and EFA-300, and employed two measurement techniques in the climate room where we varied the temperature from 15 to 25 degrees C, the relative humidity from 55% to 95%, and the electric field from 1 to 25kV/m. We calculated Pearson correlations between humidity and percentage errors for all data and for data at different levels of humidity. When the relative humidity was below 70%, the results obtained by the different measurement methods in terms of percentage errors were of the same order of magnitude for the considered temperatures and field strength, but the results were less reliable when the relative humidity was higher than 80%. In the future, it is important to take humidity into account when electric field measurement results will be compared to the values given in different exposure guidelines. Bioelectromagnetics 34:414-418, 2013. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.