BSE511 Lighting Engineering

Week 10 Light and health

Minchen(Tommy) Wei
Dept. of Building Services Engineering
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Email: minchen.wei@polyu.edu.hk
Office: ZN821

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Learning Outcomes
1. Understand CBDM, and relevant
measures
2. Describe how light affects human
circadian system and how to quantify
the effect
3. Explain the potential blue light hazard
and UV light hazard from lighting
system

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Climate-Based Daylight
Modelling
• CBDM is the prediction of lighting
quantities (e.g., illuminance and
luminance) using sun and sky conditions
that are derived from standard
meteorological datasets.

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Climate-Based Daylight
Modelling

Weather file Summarize

Lighting
+ yearly data for
Quantities over
evaluation and
Geometry the year
design
Material

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Daylight Simulation
• Ray-tracing
• Separate sky into sky patches

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CBDM Measures
• Characterizing each point
• Daylight Autonomy (DA)
• Continuous Daylight Autonomy (cDA)
• Useful Daylight Illuminance (UDI)
• Characterizing the entire space
• Spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA)
• Annual Sunlight Exposure (ASE)

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Daylight Autonomy (DA)
• It indicates how often daylight satisfies a
work plane illuminance at each point.
• DA300 lux = the percentage of the occupied
hours that the illuminance is higher than
the 300 lux.
• It is closely correlated to energy savings
for daylight-responsive switching.

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Daylight Autonomy (DA)

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Continuous Daylight Autonomy (cDA)

• cDA300 lux = the percentage of the

occupied hours that the illuminance is
higher than 300 lux, partial credit is given
when it is lower than 300 lux, at each
point.
• It is closely correlated to energy savings
for daylight-responsive dimming.

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DA vs cDA

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Useful Daylight Illuminance (UDI)
• It provides data on times when
illuminance is low, useful, and excessive.
• Percentage of time when E ≤ 100 lx
• Percentage of time when 100 lx ≤ E ≤ 3000
lx
• Percentage of time when E ≥ 3000 lx

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Spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA)
• sDA300 lux, 50% percentage of the area that
the illuminance is higher than 300 lux for
50% of the time (percentage of the area
with DA300 lux ≥ 50%
• A single value for entire space

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Spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA)

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Annual Sunlight Exposure (ASE)
• Direct sunlight is annoying
• ASE1000 lux, 250h: what percentage of the
space exceeds 250 hour of direct
sunlight

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CBDM Measures
• Characterizing each point
• Daylight Autonomy (DA)
• Continuous Daylight Autonomy (cDA)
• Useful Daylight Illuminance (UDI)
• Characterizing the entire space
• Spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA)
LEED
• Annual Sunlight Exposure (ASE)

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Radiosity vs Ray Tracing
• Radiosity based on how luminous flux
transfers between surfaces/patches
(specify patch size)
• Ray Tracing: light ray travels between
surfaces (specify number of reflection)

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Radiosity vs Ray Tracing

Radiosity Ray Tracing

Diffuse surfaces Specular surfaces
Fast Slow
View independent View dependent

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Ray tracing

http://radsite.lbl.gov

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 Ray tracing

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By Sarith Subramaniam
Daylight Calculation and Simulation

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Daylight simulation
• Sky is separated into sky patches, with
sun occupying several patches.
• Radiosity or ray-tracing

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Daylight simulation
• Sky is separated into sky patches, with
sun occupying several patches.
• Either ray-tracing or radiosity is used.

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But direct sun is a problem

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A solar distribution, with ray-tracing

5185 solar positions 24

A solar distribution, with ray-tracing

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Non-visual path
Visual path
Rods and cones to visual cortex

Non-visual path
The intrinsically photosensitive
retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) to
the suprachiasmic nucleus (SCN)

SCN is the circadian pacemaker of

the mammalian brain, driving
daily cycles in activity, hormonal
levels, and other physiological
variables. [Internal body clock]

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 Human’s circadian rhythm

Scully et al. 2011 27

 Human’s circadian rhythm

Pagani et al. 2010 28

Human’s circadian rhythm

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Spectral content matters

A drop between 470 and 510 nm

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 Light level also matters

6.5-hour exposure of white

light at the cornea from a
4100K fluorescent lamp

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Circadian light CLA

CLA should be calculated based

on the radiation at the eye
across the visible spectrum

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Circadian light CLA and circadian
stimulus (CS)
• Effective stimulus based on melatonin
suppression after one-hour exposure (0
to 0.7), threshold of 0.05

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Circadian light CLA and circadian
stimulus (CS)

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Blue light hazard
• For practical purposes with ‘white’ light
sources, any condition resulting in direct
exposure to luminance under 10,000
cd/m2 is unlikely to present a risk of
photochemical injury to the retina. For
such sources, calculation of the blue light
hazard is not necessary.

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 UV light hazard
An incident at the Landmark in Central on
Oct 20th, 2017.

“I wake up at 3am with the worst

eye pain I’ve ever had. Essentially
the feeling that there is sand in my
eyes and it can’t be washed or
blinked away.”
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UV light hazard
• UVA: 315 – 400 nm
• UVB: 280 – 315 nm
• UVC: 100 – 280 nm

• Cornea: 270-280 nm causes sensation of sand in the

eyes, tearing, sensitivity to light.
• Lens: UVA may have a role in cataract formation
• Retina: little effect, as most UV are absorbed by
cornea and lens, except when the lens are removed in
the cataract surgery.

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