Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2002

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Engineering.School of Environment, Resources and Development

Daylighting through overhead aperture is an option for daylighting applications as well as side window. Overhead aperture allows daylight to pass through and illuminate the interior from the building's top section. It can illuminate areas inside the building uniformly with proper design. It also helps in saving lighting energy consumption by reducing requirement of artificial lighting. Overhead aperture normally is applied in buildings as an atrium, or the cover of a comiyard. Some use atriums simply as architectural structures, while others use them for illuminating building interior. However, most of them are designed from architectural perspectives which may not function as well as these should. This study demonstrated the case of daylighting in the real situation. This study was done in the public area in the Eye Ear Nose Tlu·oat Hospital building at Pinklao ,Bangkok. However, the prediction of daylight calculation is the imp01iant step of this study. Two calculation methods were used in this investigation. The first is Direct light flux calculation Method that gave large error in this study. The second method is using computer program named Radiance ,which can handle the calculation of lighting in the complicated space., and has many functions to manipulate lighting calculation. The results show that Radiance gave more accurate results than Direct light flux calculation . The results from Direct light flux calculation and from Radiance program are compared and presented in this pape