Street illumination plays a big role in comfortable perception of the surrounding space in the dark and allows creating beautiful visual effects. Often, various light sources are used for this purpose on pillars and other supports, as well as the walls of buildings. But recently the assortment of models of street fixtures has considerably expanded.
Types of street lighting
Depending on the type of light source, the type of supports, the way the power source is controlled, street lighting can be divided into several types:
- facade - lanterns and spotlights fixed on buildings to illuminate certain areas of the territory (entrance, courtyard, etc.), they include recessed ceiling and wall sconces, which are often equipped with a motion sensor for greater comfort and economy electricity;
- landscape lighting - serves for the designation of garden paths , the allocation of shrubs, sculptures, trees and other parts of landscape design; decorative street lamps are installed for it, for example, a floating lamp-ball, white and black abstract lamps, etc .;
- street lighting - is mainly represented by ground street lanterns, and cantilever and street lamp lamps on high supports, the purpose of which is to create a scattered light flux over a large area.
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Varieties of street lamps
The material for creating a modern street lamp can be metal, glass, plastic, steel. Depending on the type of light source, they can be divided into:
- incandescent lamps - sufficiently powerful, with a large heat emission and a significant expenditure of electricity;
- gas-discharge lamps - in them a gaseous fuel acts as a source of light, which during the combustion causes the formation of an electric discharge, such lamps are characterized by high efficiency and long life, they are often used for decorative street lighting;
- xenon lamps - in them the source of light is an electric arc, which burns between two electrodes of tungsten;
- fluorescent lamps - characterized by high light output and a long service life;
- solar panels - economical and mobile lamps with a wide variety of body design, are used for decorative illumination of parks, squares, gardens, flower beds and so on.
Requirements for street lighting lamps
If we talk about street lighting, represented by lanterns and cantilever fixtures designed to give the main light, then they all have a number of characteristics. The main ones are power and luminous flux.
Power, as is known, is measured in watts, the light flux in Lumens. So, the efficiency of the street lamp can be determined by measuring the Lumens and Watts. The higher their ratio, the more effective and powerful the lantern.
Also, street lighting is presented with an additional set of requirements concerning technical characteristics, design, safety standards. But the color and color rendering for street lamps is not particularly important. What is the most important light output, the power of the lamps, the convenience of service, the service life.
And in order to properly choose this or that variant of street lighting, it is necessary to take into account such factors and criteria as the climate in the place of residence, possible negative environmental influences, the intensity of the flow in the illuminated radius, the requirements for illumination and luminance in the territory, the installation of the lantern body and directly light source.