Daylight availability and light pipe application in an academic building | |
| Author | Pimpapatsorn Thanhawat |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.ET-12-01 |
| Subject(s) | Daylighting Buildings--Lighting |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Energy |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Use of daylight for meeting the lighting needs of a building can be significant in tropical regions. Traditionally, building design incorporates natural daylight through the strategically positioned openings that cut of direct solar radiation but allow the light to come in. However, proximity of other buildings or trees planted nearby may block daylight coming into the building. Hence, lighting from artificial sources is supplemented in the building, which increases the electrical energy consumption. Daylight availability in the room/building depends on characteristics of openings, their orientation and area, and shading devices. Predicting daylight availability helps to know the areas of building which does not have access to adequate lighting and introducing daylighting alternatives (eg. light pipe) to reduce the electricity consumption from artificial lighting. The study aimed at studying the lighting performance of daylighting and artificial lighting for assessing the potential for the use of light pipe, its development and installation in order to reduce electrical energy consumption. The Energy Building at AIT was used as the case example. Lighting performance was evaluated by software (BESim Program) using the ray tracing method. Radiation and illumination data of year 2010 were used for the simulation. Results of the simulation were validated with measured data of a few rooms with different window orientations and numbers of windows. The simulation gives good results for rooms having windows facing north or south where it gains skylight (COD is the estimator of the corresponding population parameter between two variables and it in ranges of 0.72- 0.78 for southern orientation and in ranges of 0.66- 0.75 for northern orientation). Daylighting performance was conducted in the representative rooms from different window orientations, window area and number of shading devices and compared to artificial lighting performance. The contribution of daylight illuminance in all cases was below the minimum standard of 300 lux needed for tasks in an office/class room. The rooms still need supplementary light from artificial lighting to satisfy the tasks of the workplace. Experimental study of light pipe application was performed in a corridor without any windows and with following dimensions: 1.5 meter width, 12.8 meter length and 2.45 meter height. The light pipe that was designed is a cylindrical vertical light pipe with 60-cm of diameter and 3.8- m of length. It provides sufficient illumination by providing daylight of 149 lux during 8:00 -16:00 which can save electricity consumption during 8 hours/day. |
| Year | 2012 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Energy and Climate Change (Former title: Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Change (DEECC)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Energy Technology (ET) |
| Chairperson(s) | Kumar, Sivanappan; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Mohanty, Brahmanand;Salam, Abdul P.; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Royal Thai Government Fellowship; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2012 |