New daylight glare evaluation method. Introduction of the monitoring protocol and calculation method

Abstract

Ergonomic design of workplaces requires a proper method for predicting glare to promote visual comfort. Only a few formulae have been proposed for discomfort glare of daylight origin, and they are inadequate to predict glare sensation in real daylight situations. No standard monitoring procedure is available to establish a basis for glare evaluation on a comparative basis under real sky conditions. This paper introduces a new glare evaluation method consisting of a standard monitoring protocol and formulae for window luminance, adaptation luminance and exterior luminance, and formulae for the solid angle, the modified solid angle and the configuration factor of the window. The glare evaluation procedure was developed with the hope that architects and lighting designers would adopt it as an easy and reliable method for evaluating discomfort glare sensation from daylighting. The method has yielded in real measurements and computer simulations sensible and consistent glare values. The results of the experiments, however, are not presented here in their entirety because of the large size of that part. The future work, which is an ongoing research, is to create the use of scientific-knowledge computational tools in the later stages of design in an effort to provide optimum choices of daylighting design with respect to light level and glare using the new glare algorithm.