Effect of Luminaries’ Arrangement and Type on Visual Comfort and Energy Consumption

The current study seeks to evaluate the effect of luminaries’ arrangement and type on visual comfort and energy consumption. Two identical classrooms with different luminaries’ arrangements were selected to evaluate the efficacy of the existing lighting system in terms of illuminance uniformity, unified glare rating, and installed load efficacy ratio. DIALux Evo software validated against measured illuminance then employed to assess other suggested luminaries’ arrangement and replacing the existing fluorescent lamp with LED type to recommend the best scenario. The findings of the study indicate that the Luminaries’ arrangement and type are decisive factors that affect visual comfort and save energy wastage. Accordingly, we recommend distributing the luminaries in a way that the number of rows equals the number of columns and consider the longitudinal length of the luminaire to be parallel to the longitudinal length of the illuminated space. Field measurements revealed that the existing lighting system does not offer visual comfort for occupants and simulation findings recommend using LED luminaries in classrooms to ensure visual comfort and save energy wastage up to 50%