ELECTRICAL DESIGN

AND PROTECTION

LECTURE 7
LIGHTING FUNDAMENTALS
 LECTURE 7 – LIGHTING FUNDAMENTALS ELECTRICAL DESIGN
AND PROTECTION

Lighting

Artificial lighting is one of the most important aspects of modern society. It is now used within
buildings to illuminate dark spaces, to allow people to function during the night time whether it is
driving on roads, watching sports teams play night games, going to night clubs etc. and also is used
to highlight important aspects of architecture or advertising.

Light

Light is the electromagnetic radiation that can be seen by the normal unaided human eye. The
wavelengths that can be seen are between 380 to 760 nanometres.

The Human Eye

At the front of the eye in the sclera is the cornea which refracts light and directs it onto the lens. The
lens produces a sharp image of what is being seen on the retina. The lens can vary its curvature to
see a range of focal lengths from 300mm to infinity.

In front of the lens is the iris which houses the pupil which adjusts its aperture depending on the
amount of light available.

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The retina consists of many light sensitive cells (120 million) the two main types are rods and cones.

The rod cells are numerous and located all over the retina. They can operate at low light levels (10-6
cd/m2but have no colour sensitivity.

The cone cells are concentrated around the focal centre of the retina, function at higher light levels
(>10-3 cd/m2) and have colour sensitivity.

There are three types of cone cells which each allow different wavelengths to be seen. These roughly
respond to blue, green and red wavelengths respectively which in turn allow us to see all of the
colours that are seen by most people.

Scotopic vision occurs at low light levels when only the rod cells respond.
.

Photopic vision occurs at high light levels when the cone cells respond.

=
Mesopic vision is an interval between the scotopic and photopic range.
Street light design
The eye is not equally sensitive to all of the wavelengths, for the light adapted eye (photopic) the
peak wavelength is 555nm and for the dark adapted eye (scotopic) the peak wavelength is 507nm.

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Lighting Parameters

Φ - Luminous Flux (lumen)

The luminous flux is the total amount of light energy radiated from a light source in all directions.
The luminous flux is measured in lumens. One lumen is the total amount of light energy emitted into
one steradian, by a point source having a luminous intensity of one candela.

E - Illuminance (lux)

When luminous flux from a light source reaches a surface it may be reflected, absorbed or
transmitted. The illuminance on a surface is the concentration of the luminous flux incident on that
surface.

I - Luminous Intensity (cd)

The luminous intensity is the quantity of visible light that is emitted from a point source within a
solid angle of one steradian. Polar diagrams show the candelas of a light source at each angle.

L - Luminance (cd/m2)

The luminance is the intensity of a source or surface in the direction of the observer divided by the
area of that source or surface.

M - Luminous Exitance (lm/m2)

The luminous exitance is the total amount of luminous flux leaving a surface.

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Brightness
e The light level we

Brightness or luminosity is a very subjective concept which does not contain units. It describes
measure

whether an object is lighter or darker than its surroundings. Luminance is a form of brightness as it
measures the intensity of surfaces in the direction of an observer. However the perception of
brightness depends on the light adaption of one’s eyes. For instance a cars headlights appear very
bright at night but are hardly noticeable during the day but the luminance of the headlights is the
same in both cases. The difference is that the eyes are adapted to a low level of light at night and a
high level of light during the day making the eyes more and less sensitive to light respectively.

Another example is an office appearing well lit at night but during the day it appears dark and
gloomy. This is because during the day the windows provide a high light level and in comparison the
internal office is at a much lower light level.

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Adaption
How dark
fast react from bright to

The eye automatically adjusts to a scene so that it can extract the most information out of it. This
process of adjusting is called adaption and takes time to be accomplished. The longest time of
adaption occurs when going from bright to dark conditions. This concept becomes important when
designing road lighting installations and going from bright town centres or intersections to rural unlit
roads or dark tunnels to bright open roads.

Other sources of adaption are when offices contain bright windows and the internal surfaces are
poorly illuminated. This will lead to the eye readjusting when looking from the windows to the
internal surfaces, this leads to dissatisfaction and eyestrain.

Contrast

Contrast allows the viewer to see differences between an object and its background. Objects that
have a large contrast with the background stand out and objects that have a small contrast with the
background will blend in.

These contrasts can be between luminance or colour.

The contrast in luminance can be measured by using the luminance of an object and its background.

Lo = the luminance of the object

Lb = the luminance of the background

The border between an object and its background also defines the contrast, the sharper the border
is, the better the contrast and the diffuser the border, the worse the contrast.

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The above photo shows a large contrast between the sides and the middle of the picture. The bright
areas of the photo are due to high intensity light reflecting off surfaces that have very high
reflectance’s and the dark areas are due to no light reflecting off of the surfaces or the surfaces
having very low reflectance’s.

Glare Avoid ! !

Glare is the effect of excessively bright light in the field of view. This can be caused due to luminaires
or reflectances off of surfaces. The glare can cause discomfort or disability.

Disability glare is glare that is so sever it impairs an observer from viewing objects.

Discomfort glare leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable and this discomfort increases over time.
This is the main type of glare which needs to be controlled in interior lighting.

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The luminance of a surface in relation to its background and position to the observer is what causes
the glare. To reduce glare, these factors, luminance of the surface and position to the observer need
to be considered carefully.

Glare used to be less of an issue with louvres where the light was directed down. This was to reduce
glare on the old CRT computer monitors. However now with matt LCD screens glare is not so much
of an issue and prismatic diffusers have come back into use. This presents an increased amount of
glare within the office environment.

Direct glare is generally from luminaires and indirect glare is generally from reflectance’s of surfaces,
which are called veiling reflections.

The above photo shows glare from the windows and glare from the table. A high amount of internal
lighting would be required to reduce the levels of glare.

Colour Temperature

Colour temperature is the different colour appearances of white light and is measured in Kelvins.
The general colour appearance of light describes its warmness or coolness. Warm (yellow) light is
generally below 3300K, cool (blue) light is generally above 5300K.

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cool

NZ
office -

Break room
-

Home 2700k

Warm

Colour Rendering

The colour rendering of a light source defines how well it can reproduce the colour of an object. The
colour rendering will depend on the spectral distribution of the light source. The more bands the
spectral distribution encompasses the better the colour rendering.

If a wavelength is not present or has a very low power within the light source this colour cannot be
seen or will appear washed out as shown below.

High cm
Low CRI
Bad
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Spectral distributions for different light sources can be seen below. These show what wavelengths
each distribute at and the associated effects can be seen.

The following link can be used to compare many types of light sources spectral distributions.

http://www.gelighting.com/na/business_lighting/spectral_power_distribution_curves/

As can be seen below the low pressure sodium lamp only has one band so everything appears yellow
compared with the incandescent lamps which have a full colour spectrum and thus have a very good
colour rendering.

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A Colour Rendering Index (CRI) is used to rate how well a light source can render colour.

Group Ra Importance Typical Application

1A 90 – 100 Accurate colour matching Galleries, medical
1B 80 – 90 Accurate colour judgement Home, hotels, offices
2 60 – 80 Moderate colour rendering Industry, offices, schools
3 40 – 60 Accurate colour rendering is of little importance Industry, sports halls
4 20 – 40 Accurate colour rendering is of no importance Traffic lighting

Efficacy

The efficacy of a light source is how well it converts power into luminous flux.

Efficacy = lumens/Watts (lm/W)

Incandescent lamps have an efficacy of approximately 15 lm/W compared with fluorescents which
have an efficacy of 90 lm/W.

Lighting Power Density

Lighting power density is the measure of energy efficiency and is used with H1 calculations. This is
the total installed power consumption of the lighting system over the building area.

Light Output Ratio

The light output ratio is a ratio of the light emitted from a luminaire to the total amount of light
produced by the light source (lamp). The light that is not emitted is absorbed by the internal surfaces
of the luminaire or cannot be transmitted through the diffuser.

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Lamp Technology

Incandescent Lamps

The incandescent lamp is one of the most widely used lamps today, especially in residential
installations. They are very cheap and have a good CRI however they are very inefficient and only
come in a warm colour temperature of 2800K.

The lamp life for a GLS lamp is about 1000 hours.

Tungsten Halogen Lamps

Tungsten halogen lamps are similar to incandescent lamps using a tungsten filament but it is
enclosed in a quartz envelope. The filament is operated at higher temperatures giving it greater
efficacy. A halogen gas is used within the quartz to vaporize the evaporated tungsten and prevents
blackening of the glass.

The lamp life is typically 2000 hours. The size of the lamp is much smaller than a GLS and therefore
has better control properties, because of this and its good CRI it is heavily used for display lighting.

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Fluorescent Lamps

Mercury discharge produces mainly UV radiation but by adding coatings of fluorescent powders the
UV radiation can be converted to visible radiation.

Generally fluorescent lamps have an Ra of 85 and an efficacy of >65lm/W

The main fluorescent lamps are T5, T8 and CFL. T8 are an older type of technology that is still used
today and T5 is a newer type of technology which can provide efficacies of up to 100lm/W. Lifetimes
are around 12,000 to 25,000 hours.

T5, T8 and CFL are common within most commercial installations however, LED are now becoming
more prominent.

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High Pressure Sodium Lamps

High pressure sodium lamps are very efficient high output lamp typically used in flood lighting and
street lighting. They produce a yellow light. The life times are generally 24,000 hours and the efficacy
can be as high as 140lm/W but the CRI is typically low at approximately 25 which can be seen in the
below light spectrum.

Metal Halide Lamps

The metal halide lamp is another type of lamp used for flood lighting and street lighting applications
and also retail lighting and feature lighting at lower wattages. They produce a white light opposed to
the HPS which produces a yellow light. The life times are generally half of an HPS at 15,000 hours
and the efficacy can be as high as 115lm/W. The CRI is better than HPS at around 60Ra. This is why
the metal halide is favoured over HPS for areas where security is an issue.

Light Emitting Diodes (LED)

LEDs are semiconductor devices which produce radiation (photons) across the junction when a
Voltage is applied. The wavelengths of the photons are determined by the semiconductor material.

LED luminaires are made up of many high power >1W surface mounted LEDs with lenses to diffuse
the output light. LEDs are the newest form of lighting but are already proving very long lifetimes
with claims in excess of 100,000 hours and high efficacies.

CRI is also very good with some of the more expensive LEDs up to 98Ra.

However one must be careful when choosing LED technology as it is still in its infancy there are
issues with it such as poor colour stability e.g. 10 LED luminaires of the same colour temperature

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could be chosen for an installation but when installed next to each other the colour temperatures
look different. This is generally only the case with cheap LEDs however, the newer more expensive
LEDs are now very reliable.

LED technology is becoming the main competitor of fluorescent technology and it looks to surpass it
in the near future.

LEDs are very temperature sensitive and therefore require large heat sinks to remove the heat away
from the diode. If the heat at the junction of the LED increases too much it can seriously decrease
the lifetime of the LED. It is very important to ensure the LEDs chosen have good heat sink
capabilities.

The main places where LEDs are currently used are as replacements for compact fluorescent
downlights, accent/feature lighting or in areas where accessibility is an issue.

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Maintenance Factor

Maintained illuminance is defined as the level of light below which the average illuminance on the
work plane or target surface shall not fall below.

To calculate the maintained illuminance, a maintenance factor must be applied to a luminaire to

take into account the following:

LLMF – lamp lumen maintenance factor

LSF – lamp survival factor
LMF – luminaire maintenance factor
RSMF – room surface maintenance factor

MF = LLMF x LSF x LMF x RSMF

Table B1, B2 and B3 shall be used from AS/NZS 1680.4 to help determine the maintenance factor.
The typical cleaning cycle is 2.0 years.

No Cover →

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Refer to Appendix D1 of AS/NZS 1680.4 for an example maintenance factor calculation.

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Direct

Direct illuminance is where the light source directs its light straight onto the target surface such as a
floodlight or downlight.

Indirect

Indirect illuminance is where a light source reflects its light off another surface onto the target
surface such as an uplight.

Direct/Indirect

Direct/Indirect is a combination of the two.

Reflectance

Reflectance is an important concept as this is how much of the light a surface can reflect. This plays
an important role when modelling lighting simulations in AGI or Dialux. The lighter the colour of the
surface, the higher the surface reflectance and the darker the colour of the surface, the lower the
surface reflectance.

A pure white would have a reflectance of 1 and a pure black would have a reflectance of 0. This
means if a room was painted all white the light could reflect around the room making the room
appear brighter. If the room was painted all black the light could not be reflected and would absorb
all of the light creating a dark room except for the light source.

This becomes important when talking with the Architect to try to persuade them to make the rooms
as light as possible so that less luminaires are required.

The standard reflectances for a room are 0.80 for the ceiling, 0.50 for the walls and 0.2 for the floor.
As typically the ceilings are white, the walls are a medium colour and the floors/carpets are usually
quite dark.

As can be seen in the above photo, the green is a lighter colour with a higher reflectance and with
the same number of luminaires the green room will appear brighter.

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Wall and ceiling illuminance

To achieve a well illuminated internal space, the walls and ceilings illuminance and luminance should
be considered opposed to just concentrating on the task illuminance.

This is a very important concept to understand.

Previously when louvered troffers were used to illuminate office spaces, to reduce glare on CRT
screens, little light would reach the walls or ceilings creating a very cave like effect. If you have ever
been in an office like this you will feel a strange dislike opposed to an office with many windows and
good artificial lighting.

Table 9.3 from AS/NZS1680.1 gives a series of surface brightness diagrams used to give an indication
of the likely wall and ceiling brightness levels achieved by each luminaire.

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Uniformity

The amount of light that falls on a surface is not always constant. There are patches of ‘light’ and
‘dark’ that the eye automatically compensates for. This is called uniformity (U0).

When the uniformity is above 0.6, the eye tends to merge the light and see it as a constant
illumination until when U0 > 0.8, the eye cannot easily differentiate between the different levels. As
the uniformity deteriorates, the differences in illumination become more apparent and at
approximately U0 < 0.4, the eye differentiates quite clearly the difference between light and dark.

Minimum Illumin ation E

Uniformity (U0 ) = , U0 = min
Average Illumin ation Eav

The uniformity as required by AS/NZS 1680.1 is 0.3 along the route in circulation spaces, 0.5 over the
space in general lighting systems and 0.7 over the task area.

Typical Illuminance Levels

The following are typical illuminance levels recommended in AS/NZS 1680.1

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