Towards a Safety Standard for Radiofrequency Hazards to Flammable Mixtures - Progress and Problems

Intense RF fields present a hazard to flammable mixtures as sparks may be drawn from metallic structures acting as unintended receiving antennas. The recent history of attempts to quantify this problem is reviewed. Very recent British work has raised many new problems which suggest that the safety standard will have to be very complex if it is not to reach unreasonably pessimistic conclusions (i.e. it must not predict hazards at great distances from transmitters where direct measurements of power available from structures suggest that there is no hazard). Some possible approaches for future attempts to draft such a standard are discussed.