A Co-Simulation Scalar-Potential Finite Difference Method for the Numerical Analysis of Human Exposure to Magneto-Quasi-Static Fields

A two-step approach for the simulation of the exposure of a human body to magneto-quasi-static fields is presented. The co-simulation scalar-potential finite difference method is a calculation scheme, where a distribution of the magnetic vector potential inside the biological tissues is derived from a free space magnetic source field simulation using a tree-cotree gauging algorithm. With the obtained magnetic vector potential, the electric field strength inside the voxel representation of the biological tissues is calculated solving a high-dimensional discrete Poisson equation on a high-performance workstation with multiple graphics processing units (GPUs). An exposure scenario, including an inductive power transfer system, a car model, and an anatomical human body voxel model, is simulated using this approach, and the results are compared with a monolithic scaled-frequency finite difference time domain simulation. The maximum body-internal electric field strength (voxel average) is determined and compared with basic restrictions recommended by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.