Influence of a Receive-Array Coil on Specific Absorption Rate at 3T: Simulations and Experiments with Basic Geometries

Sukhoon Oh¹, Yeun Chul Ryu¹, Zhangwei Wang², Fraser Robb², Christopher M. Collins¹

Influence of a receive array and failure of its detuning circuit on specific absorption rate (SAR) is investigated with simulations and experiments at 3T. A simple array of two copper loops was placed around an agar-gel phantom. A gap in the circuit was placed and removed to simulate perfect and defective detuning conditions, respectively. In simulations, addition of the decoupled array resulted in only a 3% higher average SAR than with no array present, whereas with the defective circuit, an increase of 41% was observed. Trends in the SAR distributions between the different cases are similar in experiment and calculation.