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1 Maintenance Factor:
2 Room Reflections
3 Utilization Factor
In professional field proper lighting design is very important because an under lighting arrangement will
decrease the efficiency of the task for which the lightings were designed and an over lighting arrangement
will result in over expenditure of the company. On small scale this difference is not too much to worry
about but in large buildings, plants, factories, etc it becomes very significant in today electrical wiring
installations.
The simple and basic approach for calculating the lighting requirement is to divide the total light
requirement of the room by light output (lumen) provided by a single lamp. Although this is the basic
approach for an average household room, but it’s not practically accurate.
In practical there are several other parameters which are necessary to be considered in the calculation
because nothings Ideal. For example the luminaries lumen output won’t be the same throughout the
entire life span, dust deposition on lamps will also reduce their output over time which means cleanliness
is also an important parameter. A bright painted room reflects more light than a dark coloured room so
they both have different lighting requirements.
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So it is important to first understand few basic terms about lighting design before beginning the
calculations.
Room Index- It is based on shape and size of the room. It describes the ratios of the room’s length, width
This formula for Room Index is applicable only when room length is less than 4 times the width.
Maintenance Factor:
It is ratio of the lamp lumen output after a particular interval of time as compared to when it was new. The
lumen output of a light fitting decreases with time because of aging of many of its components by internal
(saturation of elements) or external factors (dust deposition). For example maintenance factor of a light
fitting used in a cool dust free area will be better than the light fitting used in hot and dusty area.
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Room Reflections
1. The ceiling
2. The walls
3. The floor
The effective reflectance’s of these 3 surfaces affect the quantity of reflected light received by the working
plane. Light colors like white, yellow will have more reflectance compared to dark colors like blue, brown.
Utilization Factor
Utilization factor (UF) is the ratio of effective luminous flux to the total luminous flux of light sources. It is
the measure of the effectiveness of the lighting scheme.
It depends upon
Room reflectance’s
Polar curve
It is the ratio of distance between adjacent luminaires (centre to centre) to their height above the working
plane.
Where,
Hm = Mounting height
N = No. of Luminaires
(Note that for different environment and conditions there are different standards. For example companies
like many MNC’s should maintain 600 lm/m2 in the Office’s for people working in night shifts)
Now let’s start with the steps. Consider the following layout of a particular floor of the School and analyse
the lighting requirements of different sections of the floor.
For ease of the calculation all the light fittings and their ratings taken into account are of Phillips make.
You can check the various fixtures and their specification here provided by Philips.
The below table is a reference table for calculating Utilisation factor for light fittings. It differs from model
to model and make to make. For just understanding the concept we are using a single reference table for
all the light fittings. The actual table is provided by the manufacturer and can be little different from the
one below.
0.70 0.50 0.20 0.43 0.49 0.55 0.60 0.66 0.71 0.75 0.80 0.83
0.30 0.35 0.41 0.47 0.52 0.59 0.65 0.69 0.75 0.78
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0.10 0.29 0.35 0.41 0.46 0.53 0.59 0.63 0.70 0.74
0.50 0.50 0.20 0.38 0.44 0.49 0.53 0.59 0.63 0.66 0.70 0.73
0.30 0.31 0.37 0.42 0.46 0.53 0.58 0.61 0.66 0.70
0.10 0.27 0.32 0.37 0.41 0.48 0.53 0.57 0.62 0.66
0.30 0.50 0.20 0.30 0.37 0.41 0.45 0.52 0.57 0.60 0.65 0.69
0.30 0.28 0.33 0.38 0.41 0.47 0.51 0.54 0.59 0.62
0.10 0.24 0.29 0.34 0.37 0.43 0.48 0.51 0.56 0.59
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.19 0.23 0.27 0.30 0.35 0.39 0.42 0.46 0.48
i.e. 70% reflectance for ceiling, 50% for wall and 20% for floor (General standard for white/light coloured
walls)
For R.I. = 1.8 and reflectance code = 752, Utilization Factor(U.F) = 0.66
F = Lighting design lumens per lamp, i.e. initial bare lamp luminous flux
You may also read: Star and Delta Connected Lighting Loads
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Lumen/Watt: 4000lm/40w
For R.I. = 1.8 and reflectance code = 752, Utilization Factor (U.F) = 0.66
For R.I. = 1.82 and reflectance code = 753, Utilization Factor (U.F) = 0.66
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For R.I. = 1.26 and reflectance code = 752, Utilization Factor (U.F) = 0.55
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So we can use single LED tube in sharing for both the bathrooms.
For R.I. = 1.05 and reflectance code = 752, Utilization Factor (U.F) = 0.49
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Note: The luminaires should be placed equidistance to each other for uniform distribution of light in the
room. The actual number of luminaires used in the classroom will be less than what we have calculated
since the utilization factor of LED lights is better than what we have taken in the calculation although steps
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