Simulation of slowly varying electromagnetic fields in the human body considering the anisotropy of muscle tissues

Stimulated by epidemiological studies about persons living under power lines, it seemed to be of broad interest to also perform field simulations with detailed models of the human body in the extremely low frequency range in order to study field effects of power lines and other 50-Hz equipment. As a basis, we chose the finite integration formulation for electroquasi-statics. A new code was implemented allowing for the use of the HUGO model of the human body, a computer data set based on the Visible Human Data Set, produced by the National Library of Medicine, MD, in connection with the orientation data set for muscle fibers in the human body by F. B. Sachse. The finite integration formulation had to be extended to allow for material tensors as they arise for the anisotropic muscle tissue described by the orientation data set. The paper describes the model and shows some results for typical situations from real life comparing the isotropic with the anisotropic model of the human body.