Experimental set-up to compare measurements and numerical simulations in Magnetic Resonance Imaging RF dosimetry

This work describes a measuring set-up which allows the comparison between measurements of electromagnetic fields inside a suitable phantom and the same quantities computed numerically. The aim is to quantify the overall reliability and accuracy of dosimetry approaches at frequencies in use in Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Numerical results were obtained through four common techniques used for electromagnetic simulations, i.e. the Finite Difference Time Domain, the Finite Integration Technique, the Boundary Element and Finite Element Method approaches. Both measurements and numerical results were obtained with and without metallic objects inside the phantom, mimicking the electromagnetic behavior of passive metallic medical implants.