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Related: About this forumNew LED Streetlight Design Curbs Light Pollution— 98 percent of lamp's energy goes to…the street…
http://www.osa.org/en-us/about_osa/newsroom/newsreleases/2013/new_led_streetlight_design_curbs_light_pollution/[font face=Serif]FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Brielle Day
The Optical Society
202.416.1435
bday@osa.org
[font size=5]New LED Streetlight Design Curbs Light Pollution[/font]
[font size=4] 98 percent of lamp's energy goes to lighting the street instead of the night sky[/font]
[font size=3]WASHINGTON, April 24, 2013Streetlights illuminate the night, shining upon roadways and sidewalks across the world, but these ubiquitous elements of the urban environment are notoriously inefficient and major contributors to light pollution that washes out the night sky. Recent innovations in light emitting diodes (LEDs) have improved the energy efficiency of streetlights, but, until now, their glow still wastefully radiated beyond the intended area. A team of researchers from Taiwan and Mexico has developed a new lighting system design that harnesses high-efficiency LEDs and ensures they shine only where theyre needed, sparing surrounding homes and the evening sky from unwanted illumination. The team reported their findings today in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express.
A unique feature of the new LED system is its adaptability to different street lamp layouts, to all kinds of streets and roads, providing a uniform illumination with high energy efficiency, says co-author Ching-Cherng Sun of National Central University in Taiwan. For example, some modern lamps that line a thoroughfare or suburban sidewalk lean into the middle of the road, lighting the street from above. But more often, lamps are posted to one side of a street, or alternating in a zig-zag pattern from one side to the other a layout that may be more efficient for roads with high traffic flow. The new design provides flexibility to be used for different illumination requests while maintaining a high efficiency, Sun says.
The proposed lamp is based on a novel three-part lighting fixture. The first part contains a cluster of LEDs, each of which is fitted with a special lens, called a Total Internal Reflection (TIR) lens, that focuses the light so the rays are parallel to one another instead of intersectinga process called collimation. These lens-covered LEDs are mounted inside a reflecting cavity, which recycles the light and ensures that as much of it as possible is used to illuminate the target. Finally, as the light leaves the lamp it passes through a diffuser or filter that cuts down on unwanted glare. The combination of collimation and filtering also allows researchers to control the beams shape: the present design yields a rectangular light pattern ideally suited for street lighting, the researchers say.
The team tested their designs performance by analyzing how little the beam would spread as it hit its targeta road or sidewalk 10 meters or more away from the source of the light. They quantified the lamps performance using something called optical utilization factor (OUF), a number that describes the relationship between the flow rate of light at the target and the flow rate of light coming directly out of the LEDs. Higher OUF indicates better performance. Simulations show that the new design achieves an OUF of 51 to 81 percent, greatly outperforming a recent excellent design that reached 45 percent. Furthermore, the proposed streetlamp meets high expectations for power and brightness. And light pollution is also significantly reduced: for conventional street lamps, up to a fifth of their total energy is directed horizontally or upward into the sky. The best LED streetlamps reduce this to a tenth of their total energy. In the new model, just 2 percent of the lamps total energy would contribute to light pollution.
[/font][/font]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.21.010612Contact:
Brielle Day
The Optical Society
202.416.1435
bday@osa.org
[font size=5]New LED Streetlight Design Curbs Light Pollution[/font]
[font size=4] 98 percent of lamp's energy goes to lighting the street instead of the night sky[/font]
[font size=3]WASHINGTON, April 24, 2013Streetlights illuminate the night, shining upon roadways and sidewalks across the world, but these ubiquitous elements of the urban environment are notoriously inefficient and major contributors to light pollution that washes out the night sky. Recent innovations in light emitting diodes (LEDs) have improved the energy efficiency of streetlights, but, until now, their glow still wastefully radiated beyond the intended area. A team of researchers from Taiwan and Mexico has developed a new lighting system design that harnesses high-efficiency LEDs and ensures they shine only where theyre needed, sparing surrounding homes and the evening sky from unwanted illumination. The team reported their findings today in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express.
A unique feature of the new LED system is its adaptability to different street lamp layouts, to all kinds of streets and roads, providing a uniform illumination with high energy efficiency, says co-author Ching-Cherng Sun of National Central University in Taiwan. For example, some modern lamps that line a thoroughfare or suburban sidewalk lean into the middle of the road, lighting the street from above. But more often, lamps are posted to one side of a street, or alternating in a zig-zag pattern from one side to the other a layout that may be more efficient for roads with high traffic flow. The new design provides flexibility to be used for different illumination requests while maintaining a high efficiency, Sun says.
The proposed lamp is based on a novel three-part lighting fixture. The first part contains a cluster of LEDs, each of which is fitted with a special lens, called a Total Internal Reflection (TIR) lens, that focuses the light so the rays are parallel to one another instead of intersectinga process called collimation. These lens-covered LEDs are mounted inside a reflecting cavity, which recycles the light and ensures that as much of it as possible is used to illuminate the target. Finally, as the light leaves the lamp it passes through a diffuser or filter that cuts down on unwanted glare. The combination of collimation and filtering also allows researchers to control the beams shape: the present design yields a rectangular light pattern ideally suited for street lighting, the researchers say.
The team tested their designs performance by analyzing how little the beam would spread as it hit its targeta road or sidewalk 10 meters or more away from the source of the light. They quantified the lamps performance using something called optical utilization factor (OUF), a number that describes the relationship between the flow rate of light at the target and the flow rate of light coming directly out of the LEDs. Higher OUF indicates better performance. Simulations show that the new design achieves an OUF of 51 to 81 percent, greatly outperforming a recent excellent design that reached 45 percent. Furthermore, the proposed streetlamp meets high expectations for power and brightness. And light pollution is also significantly reduced: for conventional street lamps, up to a fifth of their total energy is directed horizontally or upward into the sky. The best LED streetlamps reduce this to a tenth of their total energy. In the new model, just 2 percent of the lamps total energy would contribute to light pollution.
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New LED Streetlight Design Curbs Light Pollution— 98 percent of lamp's energy goes to…the street… (Original Post)
OKIsItJustMe
Apr 2013
OP
arcane1
(38,613 posts)1. Oh, how I would love for my city to adopt these!
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)2. Write the mayor’s office (but wait for them to be on the market first.)
In the meantime, even LED streetlights (like these) are preferable to most conventional streetlights.