The development of instrumentation and procedures for the electromagnetic exposure assessment of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) is investigated. The incident and induced fields from 11 CFLs have been measured in the 10 kHz–1 MHz range. Commercially available equipment was used to measure the incident fields, while a novel sensor was built to assess the induced fields in humans. Incident electric field levels significantly exceed the ICNIRP reference levels at close distances for some sources, while the induced fields are within the ICNIRP basic restrictions. Maximum current densities for CFLs are comparable to the limits (in the range of 9% to 56%), demonstrating the need for measurements to establish compliance. For the frequency range investigated, the induced fields were found to be considerably higher for CFLs than for incandescent light bulbs, while the exposure from the two LED bulbs was low. The proposed instrumentation and methods offer several advantages over an existing measurement standard, and the measurement uncertainty is significantly better than the assessment of electric and magnetic fields at close distances.
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