Indoor Sports Hall Lighting Design
Directory:
1. Indoor Sports Hall Lighting Design Requirements
2. Requirements for Power Distribution Measures
As the social economy develops and national fitness initiatives gain momentum, indoor sports hall in urban areas have proliferated rapidly. The government's recent focus on establishing vocational and technical colleges has significantly contributed to the rise in indoor sports hall. These modern college sports hall are typically large and, in addition to serving their educational purposes, are often capable of hosting competitions at the regional level and above. Consequently, contemporary basketball arenas present challenges for professionals regarding comfort and functionality. Indoor sports hall rely on artificial lighting throughout the day, with varying lighting needs depending on the availability of natural light at different times. Thus, the lighting systems for indoor sports hall must take into account more factors than those for outdoor venues.
It is crucial to manage the lighting design and distribution from the outset to ensure the effective construction and operation of the entire lighting system. This article will focus on how to develop systems that enhance the safety, comfort, convenience, and usability of indoor sports hall.
1. Indoor Sports Hall Lighting Design Requirements
1.1 Lighting Design Principles
This project involves a gymnasium at a vocational school, which is a multi-story public building standing 15.7 meters tall with two floors: the first floor serves as a volleyball court, while the second floor is designated for basketball. The roof features a steel structure. The facility is classified as a Class B sports stadium, suitable for hosting regional and national individual competitions, but it does not support television broadcasts. The lighting design for this project adheres to the Class II standards set for sports stadium lighting.
1.2 Lighting Selection
When choosing lighting, LED flood lights offer numerous benefits over traditional metal halide floodlights, including lower energy consumption, longer lifespan, consistent and gentle illumination, and eco-friendliness. Prioritizing environmentally conscious and innovative design, high-efficiency integrated LED floodlights are utilized. These floodlights feature a COB light source, which is a powerful integrated surface light source. This technology involves directly attaching the LED chip to a highly reflective metal substrate, eliminating the need for brackets, electroplating, reflow soldering, and patch processes. As a result, the overall process is reduced by nearly one-third, leading to a similar reduction in costs and effectively lowering the total expense of the lighting system.
1.3 Lighting Layout
In the basketball hall, the audience seating is situated on the second floor. To achieve the required horizontal illumination for the basketball court, audience areas, and the podium, a horse track is positioned between the court and the seating. Additionally, to facilitate the installation and maintenance of LED display screens at both ends of the venue, a single-circle circular horse track serves as the installation support and maintenance pathway. The height and distance of the horse track in relation to the stadium significantly influence the lighting power density (LPD). When the distance (D) from the horizontal projection of the horse track to the nearest edge of the court is constant, increasing the height (H) of the horse track raises the LPD. Conversely, when the height (H) is fixed, increasing the distance (D) reduces the LPD.
The design of the horse track must take into account how its position and height affect the illumination of both the stadium and audience areas, as well as the number of lamps installed. If needed, a circular horse track can be employed to separately arrange lighting for the audience and the stadium, ensuring both cost-effectiveness and optimal comfort and standards in lighting.
This project has thoroughly evaluated the requirements for horizontal and vertical illumination, uniformity, illumination ratios, and glare control. As a result, it adopts the relevant guidelines from Appendix C of the "Lighting Testing Standard" for the installation of horse tracks and lighting fixtures. The single-circle horse track surrounding the stadium serves as a support point for the lights, which are positioned in a straight line along the stadium's long sides. The lights are installed at a height of 11 meters, with the horse track's horizontal projection being 11.6 meters from the near sideline and 25.6 meters from the center of the field. The angle φ between the lights on the horse track projected onto the field and the far sideline is 29.05°, exceeding the minimum requirement of 25°. Meanwhile, the angle θ between the lights projected onto the field and the near sideline is 62.2°, which is below the maximum limit of 65°. Both angles comply with the specifications.
Figure 1 illustrates the arrangement of the lights and the calculation of their angles (the lighting arrangement for audience seating is not included in this discussion, as the focus is on the sports area lighting).
fig1 Lighting arrangement and lighting angle calculation diagram
1.4 Index Calculation
Obtaining accurate data for lighting calculations in complex environments like indoor sports hall can be challenging when relying on basic lighting formulas. To achieve precise results, lighting simulation software is utilized. Initially, Dialux lighting simulation software is employed for modeling and simulation, after which the software calculates lighting parameters that are then compared to the specifications. The minimum illumination value (Min) for the court is 466lx, the maximum illumination value (Max) is 586lx, and the average illumination value (Avg) is 521lx. The illumination uniformity U1. defined as the ratio of minimum to maximum illumination, is 0.65. while U2. the ratio of minimum to average illumination, is 0.7. The glare index (GR) does not exceed 27. Following the simulation, all calculated indicators comply with the relevant standards outlined in Table 4.2.1 of the "Lighting Test Standard" for level II indoor basketball courts. The simulated lighting plan is illustrated in Figure 2.
fig2 Simulated illumination plan
2. Requirements for Power Distribution Measures
2.1 Load Classification
The power load for sports hall must be assessed based on their size and classification. This project is categorized as a Class B sports building, where the lighting load for both Class B and Class C sports hall is considered a secondary load according to relevant guidelines.
2.2 Power Supply Plan
A reliable and effective power supply plan is crucial for ensuring the safety and stability of the lighting system. In practice, however, the lighting system, as part of the overall electrical system, typically follows the power supply plan of the building project. This can limit the system's operability, making it impractical to create a separate power supply plan for the lighting system from an economic standpoint. Therefore, during the design phase, measures can be taken to enhance the power supply for the lighting system within the framework of the overall building power supply plan, such as installing uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) or utilizing cross power supply methods. The goal of these enhancements is to achieve a balance between construction costs and system reliability. The power supply scheme for this project's electrical system consists of a single-circuit 10kV municipal power supply line combined with diesel generators to meet the necessary power load requirements.
For the lighting system, the sports hall lighting is divided into two groups, left and right, each equipped with its own distribution box. The primary power supply comes from the municipal power supply, while the backup power is provided by both the municipal supply and diesel generators, which are on standby in the low-voltage distribution room.
Historically, gas discharge light sources were primarily used for lighting competition venues. These sources require a restart time of 3 to 8 minutes to return to normal brightness after a power outage, which raises concerns about safety and stability, as they have strict requirements for power-off switching time. To address the issue of slow recovery, LED light sources are now utilized. However, for safety reasons, this design incorporates several floodlights on each side as transitional lamps, supported by an online UPS power supply to maintain basic lighting while the diesel generator starts up during unexpected power failures. Since these are transitional lights, the UPS provides limited continuous power, and the battery pack can be conveniently placed in a nearby power well, minimizing overall costs.
2.3 Lighting Control
Modern sports hall serve various purposes, including teaching, training, professional competitions, and dance activities, necessitating the ability to adjust lighting parameters like brightness and color temperature accordingly. Achieving different lighting scenes through manual adjustments of lamp angles, voltage, and layout is complex and challenging. Therefore, a centralized computer control system is preferred to manage these tasks.
This project implements an intelligent lighting system that operates in a centralized control mode. The system connects to the venue's intelligent lighting infrastructure via gateways, intelligent lighting modules, waveform detection modules, and other equipment for unified management. A control panel and computer are installed in the sound and light control room to facilitate dual-line control both in the main room and on-site. The intelligent lighting system can gather real-time data on natural lighting conditions at various times, adjust the lighting levels, preset different scenes for specific activities, and enable one-button switching. It can also be programmed for automatic adjustments based on time and other natural factors to enhance energy efficiency across the entire lighting system.