Simple mathematical models to link climate-based daylight metrics with daylight factor metrics and daylighting design implications

Abstract

Determination of interior daylight illuminance is the key step in daylighting schemes. Recently, climate-based daylight metrics (CBDMs) which considers the real climatic data for the location has been adopted to evaluate the dynamic daylight performance. However, the usual method to calculate the CBDMs is full scale computer simulations which are quite time demanding and designated skills are required. Architects and building practitioners prefer simple methods to assess daylight performance particularly during initial design process when various building schemes and concepts are being appraised. Daylight factor (DF) is the traditional daylight metric and it has a strong relationship with room parameters which can be simply modified to fit the design criteria. This paper puts forward a series of simple mathematical expressions to correlate the CBDMs with DF metrics (DFMs). The vertical outdoor illuminance at the window center point and the 49 interior points were simulated via the RADIANCE software. The results showed that there are strong correlations between these daylight metrics. The proposed approach would be useful to building professionals conducted in visual comfort, fenestration and daylighting design and evaluation in the preliminary design phase.