(This diploma thesis was carried out in the Lighting Laboratory of the National Technical University of Athens.)
The aim of this thesis is to produce a lighting design and an electrical design for the largest stone railway bridge in Greece and for the railway station next to it.
The bridge has an outer arc length of 118 metres and consists of eight arches, each 12.5 metres wide. The lighting design was carried out using RELUX Professional 2005. This software is suited to exterior lighting design and allows the user to draw surfaces and import them digitally for lighting simulation. It also includes a luminaire database from 60 manufacturers.
Specifically, once the bridge and the station had been modelled in 3D in RELUX, the luminaires were selected and positioned. Inside the arches of the bridge, two white-light luminaires with a wide beam were installed. Their discharge lamp was a ceramic discharge metal halide (CDM) lamp, suitable for lighting stone. These luminaires were also ideal for architectural lighting. For the outer faces of the arches, white-light luminaires with a very narrow beam were used. Their discharge lamp was likewise a CDM (ceramic discharge metal halide).
These luminaires were suitable for sculptures and textured surfaces. As for the lighting design of the station, four warm white luminaires (2700 K) with a wide beam were used on one facade and two warm white luminaires (3000 K) with a narrow beam on the other. Both types of luminaire were suitable for the exterior lighting of buildings.
A lighting simulation was then carried out in RELUX, which gave an overall visual impression of both the bridge and the station. In addition, calculation surfaces were defined in the software on the bridge and at the station to measure the illuminance, so that the result of the design could be assessed technically and compared with the target values found in the literature.
Finally, the electrical design of the bridge and the station was prepared, taking into account not only the currents flowing through the conductors but also the voltage drop the luminaires may cause.
