Daylighting performance of an innovative Prismatic Vertical Louvers (PVLs) shading system incorporating Prismatic Materials (PMs)

Abstract Daylight has a decisive role in buildings to provide visual comfort, and human health and well-being as well as energy saving potential in buildings; thereby, to benefit from daylighting advantages, it needs to be delivered indoors properly through designing decent daylighting systems. This paper aims to investigate the operational mechanism of an innovative daylighting system, prismatic vertical louvers (PVL), incorporating a microstructure prismatic material (PM), through a comparative study. The PVL shading system continuously rejects the direct radiation of sunlight while it transmits the diffuse scattered skylight resulting in creating a significant potential to improve visual comfort and energy saving in buildings. Through developing a parametric iterative algorithm to simulate the unique optical behavior of the proposed PVL system, the authors evaluated the ability of this innovative system in improving daylight distribution uniformity, and glare occurrence in the space compared to two state-of-the-art shading systems: mesh roller shade (MRS) system, and conventional vertical louvers (CVL). The comparison result of the study reveals the robust capability of the PVL system in enhancing the uniformity distribution of natural light across the work plane as well as removing glare occurrence for occupants.