A new daylight glare evaluation method - Introduction of the monitoring protocol and calculation method

Ergonomic design of workplaces requires a proper method for predicting glar e to promote visual comfort. Only a few formulae have been proposed for dis comfort 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 met hod consisting of a standard monitoring protocol and formulae for window lu minance, adaptation luminance and exterior luminance, and formulae for the solid angle, the modified solid angle and the configuration factor of the w indow. The glare evaluation procedure was developed with the hope that arch itects 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 consist ent glare values. The results of the experiments, however, are not presente d 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-kno wledge computational tools in the later stages of design in an effort to pr ovide optimum choices of daylighting design with respect to light level and glare using the new glare algorithm. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Scienc e B.V.