COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF LIGHTING DESIGN SOFTWARES AND EXCEL LUMEN COMPUTATIONAL (ELC) METHOD

This research focus on multipurpose-hall interior lighting design, using two lighting design softwares and Excel Lumen Computational (ELC) method of lighting design without considering day-light. This is to ascertain the overall benefits of lighting design software as compared to ELC method. AutoCAD architectural drawings of the building was obtained for floor plan dimensions. The building was categorized into seven different spaces and the lux level of the spaces considered varies. The used softwares were downloaded. Utilization factor is not visible for the user and maintenance factor is fixed (0.85) in Dialux while it is 0.6 and 0.8 respectively in Relux which is variable. The utilization and maintenance factor used in the ELC method is 0.7 and 0.8 respectively. AutoCAD was used to measure irregular shapes. 2018/2019 catalogue of a reputable manufacturer was used for lamp selection. None of the selected lamp was accessible in the softwares. All the selected lamps were accessible in ELC method. The former is characterized with difficulty to access selected lamp specifications, a lot of time and energy were devoted for searching and downloading the softwares without any useful result. These softwares are monetary. ELC method overrides these shortcomings thus recommends in this work