A systematic material selection process applied to a luminaire diffuser

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic material selection process for technical, environmental and economic criteria. This methodology has been applied to the design of a weatherproof luminaire. The materials selected for the production of this diffuser were characterized to obtain their mechanical properties and to perform exhaustive research on impact analysis by means of finite element modelling. Also an economic analysis and an ecological impact assessment have been performed. Thanks to this working methodology, a final design of the diffuser has been developed having the optimum thickness to achieve the mechanical specifications and minimize the environmental impact and the cost of the diffuser.

Evaluation of Uniformity and Glare Improvement with Low Energy Efficiency Losses in Street Lighting LED Luminaires Using Laser-Sintered Polyamide-Based Diffuse Covers

“…The selection of this material has also been based on the analysis of the rest of their properties, which allowed optimizing multiple technical criteria and to lighting applications (this material has very slight optical variations with solar radiation and temperature changes [27]), mechanical, economic, and ecological factors [28,29]. As a basic specification, the three covers are required to have a good degree of protection against impact, equal to or greater that IK10, which offers the maximum guarantees of safety and protection of the equipment.…”

Development and evaluation of a methodology to integrate technical and sensorial properties in materials selection

“…In the last fifty years, several methods and tools have been developed to guide "engineering" materials selection [16,17]. Among them, Ashby's method [10,12,13,[18][19][20] is widely implemented in the industry [21][22][23][24], providing a useful support (i.e. material indexes and properties charts) to compare different material properties since early stages of product design.…”