Visual comfort assessment in an industrial environment: A case study

Abstract

Air, water, soil, and light are important factors in the environment. Light is the only elementary part of life that has become an almost irreplaceable part of life. Because man is more connected with the interior, the task is to ensure that natural daylight in the interior is as high as possible. Industrial lighting is currently at a level that in many cases does not meet the requirements of legislation and standards. Optimal environmental conditions depend on the purpose for which the environment is intended. Since toplighting is largely involved in the overall lighting climate, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the visual comfort in a selected industrial hall with two types of glazing at the saddle skylight. In the study, measured values in the hall were used as boundary conditions in the simulation program Radiance The program evaluated the visual comfort for two types of sky by the Guth VCP method. The results show that the use of diffuse glazing instead of simple wire glazing reduces the brightness and glare levels, but that people’s satisfaction with visual comfort is greater with wire glazing. Furthermore, the model of the hall can be used to calculate light conditions for other types of arches as well as to compare other types of skylights. An alternative to diffusing glazing could also be verified for side windows.