ILLUMINANCE ASSESSMENT OF FACULTY OF PHYSICAL SCIENCES LABORATORY AND OFFICE WORK STATIONS

ABSTRACT

Illuminance level covers the minimum level of lighting required to actualize a specific task within a work environment. There is an obvious link between lighting and workplace safety: insufficient lighting leads to increased error rates, and in many cases, small or significant injuries. This study was undertaken to measure the level of illuminance in laboratories and offices of the faculty of physical sciences, University of Benin (UNIBEN), in order to ascertain if the lighting conditions in the work environment is in compliance with illumination standards (500 lux), set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulation and to identify the potential hazards that may arise from exposure to lighting conditions that are not in compliance with set standards. It was found out that there was non-compliance of all the laboratories and offices with these standards as the results obtained showed that the mean illuminance levels were below 500 lux. However, Illuminance was significantly higher in areas closer to the windows, and there was no uniformity of illuminance among workspace of the same class. It was observed that the amount of daylight greatly influences the light intensity within the workspace and that the lighting solutions installed were not able to supplement daylight to achieve the prescribed level of illuminance.