Analysis of the Electric Field Behavior on a Stimulation Chamber Applying the Superposition Principle

This paper investigates the possibility of applying electric fields in different directions in a circular chamber using two insulated electrical pairs of electrodes positioned in orthogonal directions. Controlling the current on each axis—with two independent stimulator channels—we would be able to stimulate the central area in different direction according to superposition principle. This physical hypothesis is reasonable, and the work was focused on investigating if the resulting electric fields would be homogeneous in a small work area in a circular chamber. The electric field magnitude and orientation was determined with the measured electric potential data, and then the homogeneity tested with monofactorial ANOVA. A computational model was developed, based on the experimental setup, using finite element method to solve the electric field distribution within the chamber, in order to compare the experimental results. We tested the resulting electric field for theoretical orientations of 0\(^{\circ }\) and 31.7\(^{\circ }\), and our results shows a electric field magnitude of 6.31 ± 0.11 V/m with p = 0.07 and 6.74 ± 0.40 V/m with p = 0.7032, and orientation of 0\(^{\circ }\) with p = 0.9997 and 31.7\(^{\circ }\) with p = 0.9999, respectively. Comparing the results with the analytical solution and the computational model, we observed that there was no statistical difference between them, which allows future biological experiment.