What Factors Should Be Considered In Tunnel Lighting Design?

Unlike ordinary roads,tunnel is a closed space in which sunlight can not reach.In order to ensure the safety of passing vehicles and pedestrians and improve the capacity of the road, the tunnel lighting design should not only consider the type of road surface, road length and traffic volume,but also consider the different lighting requirements of each area in the tunnel,so as to guard against the effect of "black and white holes" on human vision.

4 kinds of special visual phenomena of tunnel lighting

Black hole phenomenon

In daylight, the brightness of the tunnel entrance section is obviously higher than that of the tunnel inside. When the driver drives into the tunnel entrance, the strong brightness contrast makes the human eyes can not adapt to it immediately, and they will see a black cave or black frame.At night, in cloudy and rainy weather, when the brightness inside the tunnel is higher than that at the exit of the tunnel, black hole phenomenon will also occur.All of them will lead to drivers can not see the road clearly, obstacles are difficult to distinguish, leading to the occurrence of traffic accidents.

Light curtain phenomenon

Based on the special closed space of the tunnel, the exhaust gas emitted by vehicles and dust in the environment cannot dissipate quickly,so as to form smog.The smoke absorbs and scatters the light emitted by the front of the vehicle and the tunnel lamps.Thus, light curtain is formed to reduce the brightness contrast between obstacles and background objects such as road surface, resulting in reduced visibility of obstacles, and drivers can not accurately judge traffic conditions.

White hole phenomenon

In daylight, the brightness of the exit section of the tunnel is higher than that of inside the tunnel. When the driver drive away the entrance of the tunnel, the brightness and shade contrast will produce glare, and the human eye will see a "white hole", which will lead to the driver can not distinguish the road condition, and thus leave a hidden safety hazard.

Flicker effect

If the lighting arrangement in the tunnel is not reasonable, the light distribution in the tunnel is not uniform, and the light and dark environment appears alternately. When the speed reaches a certain speed, the driver will see the ray of light constantly flicker.

Therefore, for the special visual phenomenon of tunnel lighting, tunnel lighting should be designed according to the different tunnel lighting section.

Lighting fixtures arrangement in different tunnel lighting section

Tunnel lighting is generally divided into five sections: approach section, entrance section, transition section, middle section and exit section.

The approach section is the section of road close to the tunnel entrance, and its brightness is mainly from natural light, so there is no need for artificial lighting.The entrance section is the first illumination area after entering the tunnel and must have a high brightness to reduce the phenomenon of "black hole".The transition section refers to the road between the entrance section and the middle section. Tunnel lamps should be installed to solve the visual adaptation problem of drivers from the high brightness in the entrance section to the low brightness in the middle section.The middle section refers to the section of road after the transition section. At this time, the driver has adapted to the lighting environment in the tunnel, and the whole driving process is relatively safe and stable.In order to reduce the occurrence of "white hole", lighting fixtures should be installed at the exit of the tunnel to reduce the impact of light changes on the eyes.So, in order to have a high-quality tunnel lighting environment, how to choose tunnel lighting fixtures?

The choice of tunnel lighting fixtures

The light source of tunnel lighting fixtures should be scientifically and rationally designed, with sufficient brightness, no glare and even illumination.Lighting fixtures should easy to centralized intelligent control, have high work efficiency, good energy saving effect.The material and parts of the lamp are corrosion-resistant, shock-resistant, reliable and long life.The lighting lamps should be easy to mount and disassemble in the structure, which is convenient for later maintenance and has low maintenance cost.

Take EXC Streetlight, a lighting company with more than 10 years of experience in the field of LED road lighting, for example,the EXC Tunnel Light TA1 Series independently developed and produced by EXC has been successfully applied to many highway tunnel lighting projects across the country, effectively ensuring road safety and save municipal expenditure.It has below 6 main features:

• Smooth styling, simplicity with concise style;
• The main body is made of aluminum alloy, which has good heat conduction and heat dissipation performance;
• Can be directly flushed with high-pressure water gun;
• U-shaped mounting bracket, the module can be freely adjusted 180 degrees;
• Professional optical design, high-efficiency optical-grade lens, a variety of light distribution options;
• Lamp structure and electrical safety fully comply with EN60598, GB7000 standard requirements