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Cardiac pacemakers in magnetic fields of a shunt reactor at a 400 kV substation

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Abstract

The use of cardiac pacemakers (PMs) increases in Western countries. The aim of the study is to investigate cardiac pacemakers (PMs) using a human-shaped phantom in magnetic fields of a shunt reactor at a 400 kV substation. We performed seven PM experiments using a phantom. Two locations close to the shunt reactors were chosen. The magnetic field exposure was over 1000 µT in one location and over 600 µT in the other one. The magnetic field exposure did not disturb the tested five different PMs (in unipolar or bipolar configurations). It can be stated that in our experiment, the magnetic field exposure (over 600 µT and over 1000 µT) did not disturb the PMs (in unipolar or bipolar configurations). Since we only studied some PMs, it is possible that the magnetic field exposure at 400 kV substations can cause disturbances to other PMs. However, the risk of disturbances does not seem to be high.

Acknowledgements

The assistance of the staff of Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Environmental Health, Tampere University of Technology (Tero Haapala, and Markus Wirta) is gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks go to Seppo Malinen (WL-Medical Oy) for making programming devices available.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The project was financed by Association for Promotion of Electrical Safety (STEK ry) and Fingrid Oyj.

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