01/07/2010
Impact of Pinna Compression on the RF Absorption in the Heads of Adult and Juvenile Cell Phone Users
Andreas Christ, Marie-Christine Gosselin, Sven Kühn, and Niels Kuster, in Bioelectromagnetics, Volume 31, Issue 5, pp. 406–412, July 2010, online March 30
One of the dominant parameters concerning the exposure of cell phone users is the distance between the cell phone and the head tissue. The objective of this article is to systematically analyze the changes of this distance, which is mainly determined by the pinna thickness, and how it affects the peak spatial specific absorption rate with particular respect to differences between adults and children. The pinna thickness was measured for adults and children (6–8 years of age) using a custom-developed measurement device. The average distances of the pinnae to the heads showed no major differences between the two age groups. The pinnae of three anatomical head models (one adult and two children) were reshaped according to the measurement results. The numerical exposure analysis showed that the reduced distance due to the pinna compression can increase the maximum 10 g psSAR by approximately 2 dB for both adults and children, if the exposure maximum is associated with the upper part of the phone.