Basic Concepts of Lighting Design | Electrical Engineer | MEP Design |
Lighting system design is a very important aspect of construction projects, and the best performance is achieved when lighting is specified through detailed calculations and not “rules of thumb”. However, lighting has a key difference with other building systems like HVAC and plumbing: there is a subjective and artistic factor involved. Lighting systems must provide adequate visibility, but they also set the ambiance of built environments. Effective communication is important in any engineering design process, and this is only possible if the parties involved are familiarized with key technical concepts. This article will provide an overview of the main terms used when specifying lighting systems.
Lighting system design is a very important aspect of construction projects, and the best performance is achieved when lighting is specified through detailed calculations and not “rules of thumb”. However, lighting has a key difference with other building systems like HVAC and plumbing: there is a subjective and artistic factor involved. Lighting systems must provide adequate visibility, but they also set the ambiance of built environments.
Effective communication is important in any engineering design process, and this is only possible if the parties involved are familiarized with key technical concepts. This article will provide an overview of the main terms used when specifying lighting systems.
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
The Lumen: <strong>Basic</strong> Unit <strong>of</strong> Luminous<br />
Flux<br />
However, this leads to confusion when comparing different types <strong>of</strong><br />
lighting. For example, the lumen output is roughly the same for a 60W<br />
incandescent bulb, a 15W compact fluorescent light, and a 9W LED bulb.<br />
A common misconception about LED lighting is that you end up with a<br />
darker room due to the reduced wattage. However, this comes from the<br />
old practice <strong>of</strong> describing brightness with watts, when the correct unit is<br />
the lumen.<br />
The concept <strong>of</strong> luminous efficacy describes how efficiently a lamp<br />
converts watts <strong>of</strong> electricity into lumens, similar to the gas mileage (MPG)<br />
<strong>of</strong> a car. Assuming the three light bulbs described above produce 900<br />
lumens each, the luminous efficacy values would be the following:
Change language