A Method for Assessing the Potential for a Dermal Burn Hazard From Malfunctioning Consumer Electronic Devices

We developed an approach to adapt the ASTM C1055-03 Standard to assess the potential for contact burn injury from portable consumer electronic devices. The approach involves measuring the maximum temperature profile during the fault and devising a way to reproduce these temperatures in an exemplar d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of burn care & research 2008-03, Vol.29 (2), p.338-345
Main Authors: MIKOLAJCZAK, Celina J, TAYLOR, Paul M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Burns
Burns - etiology
Dermatology
Electronics
Equipment Failure
Equipment Safety
Humans
Medical sciences
Skin Diseases - etiology
Temperature
Traumas. Diseases due to physical agents
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Summary:We developed an approach to adapt the ASTM C1055-03 Standard to assess the potential for contact burn injury from portable consumer electronic devices. The approach involves measuring the maximum temperature profile during the fault and devising a way to reproduce these temperatures in an exemplar device in a controlled manner for thermesthesiometer measurements. By comparing the results of the thermesthesiometer measurements to the contact burn injury threshold data published in ASTM C1055-03 and various guidelines for unintentional contact times, we were able to predict whether a potential hazard exists and verify result with "finger tests." We applied this method on a number of occasions to assess the likelihood of a contact burn injury resulting from a fault arising inside portable consumer electronic devices.
ISSN:1559-047X
1559-0488
DOI:10.1097/BCR.0b013e318166797c