Analysis of Protective Hoods Near High-Voltage Power Lines With Installed Communication Antennas

This paper studies the effect of the conducting hoods used to protect workers from the exposure to high-voltage power frequency and high-frequency communication electromagnetic fields. The finite-difference time-domain technique is employed to solve for the electric-field strength inside a human head model filled with biological material representing the human brain. By evaluating the field at several points and comparing the results with and without the hood, it is shown that at some spots in the head, the field is higher by a significant factor when the hood is present. It is also shown that with the presence of a see-through screen, the field intensity inside the head can be drastically reduced by eliminating the resonance effects. Following our analysis, a general safety guideline can be prescribed and used by the workers when exposed to a broad frequency range spanning from extremely low frequencies to the radio frequencies. The method also enables investigations on how to design a hood that is most suitable for a given frequency spectrum.