ELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC FIELDS OF DOMESTIC MICROWAVE OVENS QUANTIFIED UNDER DIFFERENT CONDITIONS

Considerable work is being carried out to quantify the electric and magnetic fields generated by high voltage transmission lines and other electrical appliances and devices. This paper deals with the electric and magnetic fields produced by microwave ovens under different circumstances. At a distance of 2 cm from the unshielded ovens one can observe electric and magnetic fields up to 20 kV m-1 and 500/I respectively. With shielded ovens the electric field is completely reduced while the magnetic field is about five times lower. When ovens operate under ungrounded conditions the magnitude of the electric field reaches 1.2 kV m-1.Though under some circumstances both fields obviously can be high, their magnitude however decreases rapidly with distance.