Founded in 1997, Gestamp is an international group dedicated to the design, development and manufacturing of metal automotive components. With multiple locations within the United States, Gestamp Automoción specializes in developing innovatively designed products to achieve increasingly safer and lighter vehicles, thereby reducing energy consumption and environmental impact. Gestamp also has a history of providing natural light deep into their facilities not only to meet their green initiative, but for the overall health and happiness of their people.
Solatube International helps to integrate energy-efficient natural lighting into a warehouse manufacturing facility
Challenge
When designing the Gestamp Chattanooga II manufacturing facility in Chattanooga, Tenn., one of the most significant challenges encountered was how they would add natural light to the massive facility without sacrificing light quality that would affect worker’s productivity or safety. With 40-foot to 60-foot roof deck heights, traditional skylights were not a viable option to deliver the required amount of daylight to the finished floor. Due to the nature of their work, Gestamp required a light source that could deliver balanced daylight throughout the day, without glare or walking patterns of light. In addition, with facilities typically running 24 hours a day, Gestamp wanted to find a way to minimize the amount of electric light usage during the daytime hours.
Solution
To properly daylight the expansion sights totaling over 500,000 square feet of warehouse and manufacturing space, Gestamp turned to the design professionals for Vista, Calif.-based Solatube International, JP Ross and Co., out of Charlotte, N.C. To meet their design goals, the project used 527 Solatube M74 SkyVault series units, the largest and most efficient daylighting system on the market.
To ensure a consistent amount of daylight delivered to the floor where Gestamp employees perform their daily tasks, the design team used Solatube’s proprietary design calculator to determine the number of units needed and the amount of light that the Solatube Daylighting Systems would bring into the space.
Results
The M74 SkyVault series 29-inch diameter tube allowed for maximum output while minimizing impact on the building envelope and significantly reducing the thermal impact on the building. As surprising as it may seem, the 527 M74 units installed required roughly 1/5 percent of the roof aperture to deliver the optimum amount of daylight to meet Gestamp’s lighting objectives. Other traditional top daylighting products would require 3 percent or more aperture opening in the roof to deliver the same amount of light as the Solatube product. By minimizing the total required opening in the roof, the building envelop is more efficient, thereby reducing the negative impact on both heating and cooling loads.
The SkyVault Collector and Amplifier extensions were also added to improve the delivery of daylight to the floor.
Featuring proprietary Raybender HD, LightTracker and INFRAREDuction Technologies, the SkyVault Collector maximizes daylight delivery by capturing and redirecting low-angle light downward into the system and minimizes solar heat gain by preventing heat-carrying infrared rays from entering the system.
The cone-shaped SkyVault Amplifier with 36 highly reflective facets made of proprietary Spectralight Infinity material, reorients daylight to the visual task plane in occupied areas and converts daylight, traditionally delivered at inefficient angles, into useable light for increased optical efficiency. Through Solatube’s proprietary diffuser technologies, the design team was confident that daylight would be evenly distributed within the high bay warehouse and manufacturing facility without the impact of glare or hotspots.
With the consistent daylight provided by the Solatube M74 DS Units, the Gestamp Chattanooga II manufacturing facility was able to achieve desired light levels, meet energy saving goals, improve quality control and create a better work environment for employees. The company will continue to create Volkswagen parts in its beautifully daylit plant.
Neall Digert, Ph.D., MIES, is the vice president of Solatube International Inc., Vista, Calif. For more information, visit www.solatube.com.