EMF practical seminars - redesign of the experimental set-ups

Status:

completed 02/2025

Aims:

With the entry into force of the German Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance on Electromagnetic Fields (EMFV) in 2016 and publication of the Technical Rules under the EMFV (TREMF-NF, TREMF-HF, TREMF-MR) in 2021, DGUV Regulation 15 (Electromagnetic Fields) is due to be withdrawn in the near future. This change naturally has a considerable impact on the content of the EMF practical seminars, which must be brought into line with the new regulations.

The aim was to incorporate the new regulations into the content of the seminars, adapt the existing practical experiments to the requirements of the new EMF Ordinance, and integrate new learning aspects effectively into the practical exercises. The changes concerned the two advanced seminars on the assessment of high-frequency and low-frequency fields. This modification and restructuring was carried out jointly by the German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the energy textile electrical and media products sectors (BG ETEM) and the Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA).

Activities/Methods:

In the first phase of the project, the current body of practical experiments was noted and the descriptions of the experiments were amended to cover the deviations between the two sets of regulations. In the next phase, the practical experiments, particularly the apparatus, were modified to reflect the state of the art and bring them into line with the requirements of the EMF Ordinance. This was followed by updating of the description of the experiments for the participants and the lecturers.

Since the practical experiments for assessing electromagnetic fields in the workplace constitute a fundamental part of the advanced seminars, the theoretical seminar components required for successful performance of the practical experiments were then defined. These project steps were followed by a phase in which the adaptation of the seminar content was reviewed. This took place while the seminars were in progress and, owing to the seminars being held at annual intervals, was trialled in a total of four seminars up to the end of 2023.

Results:

Necessary adjustments to the tuition content of the seminars were identified and implemented in the course of the project. In addition to introduction of the new assessment method, the "weighted peak method" (WPM), by means of a new practical experiment, many other adjustments were made as necessitated by the EMFV. In the low-frequency range, for example, the permissible values are now specified in accordance with the EMFV as peak values, which are taken into account in all experiments in the seminar. Regulatory terminology, some of it new, has been introduced for the two seminars (concerning high-frequency and low-frequency fields). In addition, the premises under examination need no longer be divided into exposure areas for measurements in accordance with DGUV Regulation 15, and the IFA’s EMF-LIT online application has been included in the seminar programme. To modernize the seminars further, some obsolete field sources were replaced with modern equipment (such as inductive heaters), and training laptops were introduced into the teaching process. All changes were tested in practice during the course of seminars and optimized iteratively as required.

During the course of the project, a further seminar location became available for the low-frequency seminar. This was taken into account in the project and led to some of the equipment for the experiments being duplicated.

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