Program Description & Philosophy

 

Flucs comprises a database of information about luminaires, lamps and LLMF curves, it performs lumen and glare (design) calculations, and performs a point-by-point lighting simulation (analysis).

 

The program can be used to produce & maintain a database which holds information about luminaires and lamps. The information from the database can then be used by the program for design or analysis purposes. An extensive system database is provided but this can be supplemented with your own data. You can use the 'Database Path' option from the Database menu to define a search path of directories so that several separate databases can be linked to the program at run-time.

 

Photometric data may be entered into the program either interactively or by using data files in standard CIBSE or IESNA formats. The standard CIBSE type-1 and type-2 formats are used and are described in CIBSE TM14. For interactive input you describe the luminaire, the valid lamps for the luminaire, and polar-curve data for luminous intensities. Optionally, light-output ratios, spacing-to-height ratios, utilisation factors, and glare indices may be entered. For lamps the lamp description and, optionally, lamp-lumen maintenance-factor curves are specified.

 

The program can calculate light-output ratios, spacing-to-height ratios, utilisation factors, glare data and aspect factors and can perform LG3 checks and BZ classifications for a luminaire, based on the polar-curve information. The results can be viewed on the screen and output as hard copy if you wish. However, they will not be stored in the database unless you save them explicitly.

 

The program will analyse both electric lighting and daylighting using the point-by-point method.

 

You must specify the area dimensions, the surface reflectances (if it is an internal room), the type of luminaires and lamps, as well as their positions and orientations and the window positions. Various options are provided to allow you to edit, add or delete the area data, the luminaire positions, & the window positions. The program will check that all combinations of luminaires and lamps exist and that they are sensibly positioned within the room and that the windows do not overlap; you will be warned if any value is considered unsatisfactory.

 

The results can be viewed at the screen as well as being optionally printed to a file; these include the minimum, average and maximum illumination levels, the average internally reflected component, the total circuit wattage and the wattage per square metre. A graphical image is also produced for both the electric lighting and daylighting, which shows either the isolux levels or daylight-factor levels in the area, together with any task areas defined.

 

The input data is saved on file and can be read later, either to examine the data, or to make any necessary modifications. It is also possible to read input files created during the design calculation, in order to analyse these solutions in more detail.

 

 

There are effectively no limits, and you may enter as many luminaires and lamps as you like into the database. The size of the database is only restricted by the size of the disk on your machine. However you may only input up to 10 lamps per luminaire. For each luminaire, the maximum number of data items which can be read in for the polar curves is 72 x 55 when the CIBSE format is used, or 12 x 55 if you input the data interactively.

 

The program works by reading in the required luminaire or lamp when it is needed and then storing this in memory; large databases however will slow the process down as there are more luminaires to search through. The program is able to hold 10 luminaires concurrently, as well as 20 lamps; if another is required then it will discard the first one which was read in and replace it with the new one. Once the data is in memory however, all references to it will speed up as the program accesses the copy of it in memory.

 

The limits for types of data used during the analysis are:

 

 

 

 

 

The program uses a menu system so that you can select the process you wish to perform and move easily from one process to another. Appendix A shows the menu structures and gives a checklist for first-time users of the programs. The following main processes are available:

 

·       Data input

·       Data editing

·       Data review

·       Calculations

·       Output

·       Saving data

·       Utilities