Dual ducting: An innovation to increase the use of daylight in buildings

Abstract

Daylight guidance systems deliver daylight into remote parts of buildings. However, they still lack market penetration. The primary difficulty lies within the installation process. Daylight guidance systems use light ducts to distribute daylight, which occupy significant amounts of space. The integration of light ducts and heating, ventilation and air conditioning ducts is a promising solution. This study compares the differences and similarities of the two ducting systems, suggests an integrated system and evaluates the potential of and challenges faced by the proposed dual ducting system. A schematic application is completed and demonstrates that the dual ducting system has the economic potential to reduce costs, avoid conflicts between building systems and simplify the installation of daylight guidance systems.