Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 35 (2013) 172177

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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology

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Study of pergolas for energy savings in road tunnels. Comparison with

tension structures
A. Pea-Garca a,, L.M. Gil-Martn b
a
b

Department of Civil Engineering, ETSI Caminos, Canales y Puertos, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
Department of Structural Mechanics, ETSI Caminos, Canales y Puertos, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 17 October 2011
Received in revised form 16 November 2012
Accepted 15 January 2013
Available online 24 February 2013
Keywords:
Road tunnel
Lighting
Pergolas
Tension structures
Energy savings

a b s t r a c t
The huge consumption and environmental impact of electrical lighting in road tunnels in terms of energy,
materials and maintenance, has evidenced the necessity of using solar light for tunnel lighting during
daytime. One satisfactory solution has been to shift the threshold zone out of the tunnel by means of tension structures. Although pergolas in the portal gate of road tunnels have been mainly used for structural
purposes, they have been also claimed as a co-lateral solution to achieve this target. In this work, the theoretical basis of the ad hoc use of pergolas for energy savings in road tunnels are developed, analyzed and
compared with tension structures. General expressions for the light distribution under any arbitrary pergola, not reported in the reviewed literature for this study, are presented and the ESTS equation, used for
energetic evaluation of tension structures, is also generalized to the case of pergolas. Finally, the accuracy
of pergolas for normative compliance in matter of illumination is discussed and several important conclusions are presented.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In areas of heavy trafc, intersections of two highways at different levels are frequent. Some other times it is a railway which
passes over the road. In these situations it is necessary to build
one structure to hold the upper superstructure. Sometimes, when
the upper road or railway is in curve or crosses the road below with
an oblique angle, some of the beams could be useful for the visual
adaptation of drivers before they enter the underpass. Precast concrete I-girders forming one pergola are generally used in order to
make the erection faster and easier. The dimensions of the girders
depend on the length of the span, with depth between 0.60 and
2.00 m and ange width between 0.80 and 1.50 m. Usually these
girders are pin-connected in both ends and held by lateral retaining walls or piles as shown in Fig. 1a.
The lightdark succession under these pergolas has also been
considered to help the visual adaptation of drivers entering the
underpass under conditions of external sunlight without using
electrical lighting and relying instead on reduced levels of natural
light before entering the tunnel itself. For this reason, concrete
vaults with openings have eventually been built in the portal gate
of road tunnels (Fig. 1b) in order to start such visual adaptation before the tunnel with the consequent saving of electrical lighting
(road tunnels have a much more powerful lighting at their

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: pgarcia@ugr.es (A. Pea-Garca).
0886-7798/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tust.2013.01.008

beginning, in the so called threshold zone (Adrian, 1982; CIE Publ.

88, 2004), to achieve this adaptation).
This way of saving energy from the electrical lighting by shifting
the threshold zone of tunnels has been also successfully performed
by means of other kind of structures. One of these solutions are the
so called tension structures, that is, tensed translucent textile
structures allowing natural light to pass (Gil-Martn et al.,
2011a,b). Optimization of tension structures in terms of light distribution and energy saving is currently an active eld of research
(Pea-Garca et al., 2010; Pea-Garca et al., 2011; Pea-Garca
et al., 2012).
In this work, the photometrical and energetic accuracy of pergolas to shift the threshold zone of road tunnels is analyzed and some
important conclusions are presented.

2. Results
2.1. Light distribution under one pergola
Let there be a pergola between two concrete walls (without
opening) in arbitrary insulation conditions, that is, any location
in the world, any day in the year and time in the day. Given that
one pergola consists of the succession of several items (beam + free
space between two beams), the study of the light distribution on
the road under one the pergola can be reduced to one of these unitary components. In general, for such study, three well differentiated zones have to be considered: the shadow from the nearest

A. Pea-Garca, L.M. Gil-Martn / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 35 (2013) 172177

173

Fig. 2. Light distribution under one pergola.

Fig. 3. Insolation conditions on pergolas located in places with surface-solar

azimuth angle u = 0. where: h is the height of the tunnel or clearance, t is the
thickness of the beams, w is the width of the beams, d is the distance between
beams, h is the solar altitude (angle between ray and the horizontal), Lbright is the
length of one illuminated zone, Ldark is the length of one beam shadow.

Fig. 1. Concrete pergola on roads. (a) Under superstructure. (b) At the portal gate of
a road tunnel in Lorca, Spain.

wall to the sun, the shadow from the beam and the bright zone due
to the free space between beams. These zones are shown in Fig. 2
below.
Since the calculation of the extension of both, illuminated and
dark zones under the structure, may be somewhat involved, especially in zones where the shadows of wall and columns overlap, the
case of one tunnel whose surface-solar azimuth angle is u = 0 has
been rst considered and then these results have been extended to
the most general case corresponding to an arbitrary surface-solar
azimuth angle u, that is any longitude, season and time in the day.

shadow on the road under the structure so, we will only calculate
the shadow from the columns.
Fig. 3 below shows a longitudinal cross-section of the pergola
and the insolation conditions for a surface-solar azimuth angle, u
equal to zero:
From Fig. 3, the following expressions can be easily deduced:

h
ht
t
d
d
tan h
tan h
tan h

ht
h
t
w
w
tan h
tan h
tan h

Lbright

Ldark

The sum of (1) and (2) makes the trivial relationship:

Lbright Ldark w d
2.1.1. Particular case: parallel incidence to the road lane
The extension of both, bright and shadowed zones under the
pergola will be calculated when the surface-solar azimuth angle
u = 0. This particular result is extremely useful for incorporation
into the general case. Note that in this case, the wall makes no

Eqs. (1) and (2) show that, for surface-solar azimuth angles u = 0,
the length of the illuminated and dark zones do not depend on
the clearance of the tunnel but on the dimensions of beams, w,
and the separation between two consecutive ones, d.

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A. Pea-Garca, L.M. Gil-Martn / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 35 (2013) 172177

Note that, for road tunnels with EastWest orientation, this two
dimensional case can be a good approach.

From Figs. 3 and 4 the areas of shadow from the beam, SSB, and
the bright zone, SBR, can be obtained as:

2.1.2. General case: arbitrary insulation conditions

Now let us consider the general situation corresponding to a
tunnel with arbitrary geographical longitude and latitude at any
season and time in the day. In this case, it is necessary to consider
the shadow of the walls holding the beams (height h + d for the
structural conguration represented in Fig. 1a).
Concerning the shadow of the lateral wall, it is important to remark that the thickness of the walls have no inuence on their shadow because, geometrically, it is the inner side of each wall which
limits the penetration of rays within the pergola.
To calculate the shadow due to the wall on the side of the sun
(the other side makes no shadow on the item), the sketch represented in Fig. 4 must be considered. In this Figure, a longitudinal
section of the wall and the relative orientation of the tunnel have
been represented:
From this gure the extension of the wall shadow on the
ground, PW, is given by:

SSB Ldark LB  P W

PW

sin /
h t
tan h

Thus, the shadow due to the wall on one item (beam + space between two beams) is one rectangle whose surface, SW, is given by:

SW

sin /
h tw d
tan h



cos /
t w LB  PW
tan h



cos /
LB  PW
SBR Lbright LB  PW d 
tan ht

LB is the length of the beam, i.e. the distance between axes of the
lateral walls and the factor (LB  PW) corrects the overlap of both,
beam and wall shadows, by resting the overlapping zone, whose
length is PW.
The nal expression of the light distribution under one item of
the pergola, can be obtained from expressions ()()()(5)(7) above.
The total shadowed surface, SST, can be obtained by summation
of expressions (5) and (6):

SST SW SSB

The shadow of the horizontal beam can be easily obtained rotating

the wall orientation 90.

Introducing Eq. (4) in (8) and rearranging terms, a more intuitive,

expression is obtained:

SST
5



sin /
cos /
h tw d
t w LB  PW
tan h
tan h





sin /
cos /
cos /
h t d 
t LB
tw
tan h
tan h
tan h

PW Lbright LB Ldark

Whereas the surface of the illuminated zone, SBR, is given by expression (7).
Expressions (7)(9) are completely general and the sum of both,
shadowed and bright areas, give the total surface:
SST + SBR = (w + d)LB.
2.1.3. Analysis of results
2.1.3.1. Surface-solar azimuth angle u = 0. Although this trivial case
was used to derive the general expressions, due to its importance it
will be analyzed now within the general framework:

SW 0


t
w LB
SSB
tan h

10

SST SW SSB SSB



t
LB
SBR d 
tan h

Fig. 4. Shadow from the lateral wall for any arbitrary surface-solar azimuth angle.
where: u is the surface-solar azimuth angle (horizontal angle between the road
lane and one line comming from one point directly beneath the sun). PW is the
extension of the shadow of the wall in the space between beams.

If we take some typical values for the parameters in (10), we can

analyze the results above. In particular, a shell concrete structure
with thickness, t = 0.35 m, clearance, h = 5.5 m, length of beams,
LB = 13 m and clear distance between beams, d = 1 m will be considered (in Fig. 1.b the clear distance between beams is around
1.35 m). In Fig. 5 the total shadow surface (m2) has been represented for several values of the solar altitude angle, h, in function
of the width of the beam. Fig. 5 shows that, for u = 0, the shadow
surface increases linearly with the width of the beam, for smaller w
or larger solar altitude, the shadow surface becomes smaller. In
Fig. 5 all the lines have the same slope.
This case corresponds to the maximum extension of the bright
zone, SBR because there is no shadow from the lateral walls. Eq. (10)
show that the surface SBR is independent of w, so, it is constant for
each value of h.
2.1.3.2. Surface-solar azimuth angle u = 0. In this case, Eqs. (5)(8)
can be expressed as:

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175

2.1.4. Arbitrary surface-solar azimuth angle, u, and solar altitude, h

For t = 0.35 m, h = 5.5 m, LB = 13 m and d = 1 m, the total shadow
surface has been analyzed. In Figs. 7a and b, values of the shadow
area in function of h and u have been represented respectively. Given that SST + SBR = (w + d)LB, the bright area can also be obtained
from this Figure.
Fig. 7 shows that the shadow area under the pergola is most
inuenced by the solar altitude angle, h, than by the surface-solar
azimuth angle, u .
2.2. Mean illuminance and energy savings

Fig. 5. Evolution of the total shadow surface with the width of the beam for u = 0,
t = 0.35 m, h = 5.5 m, LB = 13 m and d = 1 m (see Figs. 2 and 3 for nomenclature).

ht
w d
tan h
wLB

SW
SSB

11

SST SW SSB


ht
SBR d LB 
tan h

Values of bright surface, SBR, for both trivial cases u = 0 and u = 90

have been represented in Fig. 6 in function of w for several values of
h. Values of constants: t, h, LB and d are the same as in the previous
example.
Fig. 6 shows that the bright surface for u = 90 is smaller than
for u = 0. This is due to the shadow of the lateral wall when
u 0. The difference between both cases decreases as the value
of the solar altitude angle, h, increases.
Obviously,
 for
 low values of the solar altitude, that is, for angles
h 6 arctan ht
Eqs. (5), (7), and (8), become SW = SST = LB(w + d)
LB
and SBR = 0. That is, the shadow of the wall occupies the whole
space between beams. In this situation, the shadow of the beam,
SSB = wLB, would lay beyond this surface. So, the extension of the
shadow is maximum. This limiting value of h for the typical parameters considered, t = 0.35 m, h = 5.5 m, LB = 13 m, is h = 24, which
can be easily reached even during the middle hours of the day during winter. For example, in Granada (South of Spain), h = 28 at
14:00 on December 21st.

Fig. 6. Evolution of the illuminated surface with the width, w of the beam for
t = 0.35 m, h = 5.5 m, LB = 13 m and d = 1 m with u = 0 and u = 0.

Once the distribution of shadow and bright zones under one

arbitrary pergola is known, it is possible to check whether the light
distribution fullls the relevant light transition requirements and
how much energy the extension of the tunnel threshold zone with
pergolas can save.
The achievement of both targets must be expressed in terms of
one photometrical quantity, the illuminance E, which is the luminous ux, /, (power emitted, transported or received by a light
wave) received by one surface, S, coming from every direction:

/
S

12

The illuminance unit is the lux and the illuminance on a horizontal

surface is called horizontal illuminance.
The illuminance on the road surface has two components: a direct component (light coming from the sun directly) and a diffuse
component (light coming from the scattering in the atmosphere,

Fig. 7. Shadow surface in function of, (a) the surface-solar azimuth, u and (b) solar
altitude, h, for t = 0.35 m, h = 5.5 m, LB = 13 m, w = 1 m and d = 1 m.

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A. Pea-Garca, L.M. Gil-Martn / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 35 (2013) 172177

which is responsible for the blue of the sky). In a sunny day without clouds, the direct and the diffuse components contribute to the
global illuminance with around 80% and 20% respectively. In this
work we will just consider the direct component because of the
existence of lateral walls and upper beams makes the diffuse component negligible.
Let there be a horizontal illuminance E on the bright zone of the
road under one pergola. According to the denition of illuminance
above, the luminous ux on the illuminated part of the road is given by / = ESBR. Nevertheless, given that we are not considering the
diffuse light that might arrive in the shadowed zones, this luminous ux will be also the luminous ux on the whole stretch,
whose area is ST = (w + d)LB .
So the mean illuminance on the road under one stretch of the
pergola, Em, is given by:

Em E

SBR
d tan h  t cos uLB tan h  h t sin u
E
ST
w dLB tan2 h

13

The expression of Em will be the input in the ESTS equation (PeaGarca et al., 2011), which allows the comparison of different structures shifting the threshold zone of one road tunnel in terms of energy savings from the electrical lighting. This equation is given by:

Q tS
lS
1S
Qt
lt

14

where QtS is the energy consumed by the electrical lighting in the

threshold zone when shifted by any kind of structure. Qt is the electrical energy consumed by the electrical lighting in the same
threshold zone without shifting structure. S EEm , is the average enTh
ergy savings under the structure, that is, the ratio between the
mean illuminance on the road under the structure and the theoretical illuminance in the threshold zone. lS is the length of the structure (the pergola in this case). lt is the length of the threshold zone.
It is important to remark that, although the ESTS equation was
rst derived to evaluate tension strustures (Pea-Garca et al.,
2011), it is completely general and can take account of any kind
of structure shifting the threshold zone of one road tunnel whatever its material, length, shape and orientation. In particular, it is
used in this work to evaluate pergolas.
Thus, introducing Eq. (13) in the ESTS equation and considering
that the length of a pergola is given by lS = N(w + d), where N is the
number of items, the energy saving in the threshold zone is:

Q tS
E d tan h  t cos uLB tan h  h t sin u N
1
ETh
lt
Qt
LB tan2 h

15

Being ETh the required illuminance calculated for this tunnel using
the L20 method (CIE Publ. 88, 2nd Ed., 2004; Blaser and Dudli, 1993).
Note that, for surface-solar
 azimuth angles u = 90 and solar
, then QQtS
altitudes below h arctan ht
1, that is, given that
LB
t
the whole road is shadowed by the wall, no solar light reaches
the road and, thus, the energy consumed by the electrical lighting
in the threshold zone when shifted by any kind of structure (pergola in this case), is the same as if there were no pergola.
Besides the parameters concerning the amount of luminous ux
on one given surface, there are other issues related with the light
distribution on such road. The main parameter taking account of
the light distribution is the mean uniformity, dened as

Um

Emin
Emed

16

If we consider that only the direct component of illuminance has

inuence on the light distribution under one pergola, then, in the
shadowed zone, Emin = 0 and hence, in pergolas, Um = 0. In road tunnels, the mean uniformity must be above 0.4 (CIE Publ. 88, 2004) so,
pergolas do not fulll this important requirement.

Fig. 8. Compromise between w and d for three different mean illuminances.

2.2.1. Application to a real road tunnel

Let there be a pergola with lS = 15 m shifting the threshold zone
of a road tunnel with an almost perfect SouthNorth orientation
(3711 N, 335 W) located in Jan (South of Spain) at the most
unfavourable solar conditions, that is June 21th at 14:00 h. The
choice of this particular tunnel is due to the necessity of comparing
the results of pergolas with these of tension structures obtained
(Pea-Garca et al., 2011).
The maximum allowed speed in this tunnel is 80 km/h. So, the
length of the threshold zone, lt, is 64 m and the value of the required illuminance level in the rst half of the threshold zone obtained using the L20 method (CIE Publ. 88, 2nd Ed., 2004) is
ETh = 8222 lux. The solar coordinates in the chosen date and time
are h = 75 490 4800  76 and u = 164 440 5200  165.
Typical values of illuminance at the place where the tunnel is
located at 14:00 h in June 21st vary between 50,000 and
100,000 lux. In this paper these extreme values and an intermediate one, 75,000 lux, will be considered.
To obtain the optimal dimensions of the pergola from Eq. (13),
the xed parameters are t = 0.35 m, h = 5.5 m, LB = 13 m,
ETh = Em = 8222 lux and E = 50,000, 75,000 and 100,000 lux. The
values of w and d that verify Eq. (13) have been represented in
Fig. 8.
Fig. 8 shows that to achieve the required illuminance level, ETh
required by the L20 method, for a xed value of the distance
between beams d = 1 m, the width of the shell of concrete, w, increases from 5.40 to 11.80 m if the iluminance on the bright zone
goes from 50,000 to 100,000 lux.
If the values of w represented in Fig. 8 are introduced in Eq. (15),
the energy savings corresponding to one given pergola can be obtained. In order to compare with the other way to shift the threshold zone of a road tunnel studied by the authors in previous works
(tension structures), a value as near as possible to lS = 15 m for the
length of the tension structure, which was proved to be reasonable
in terms of mechanical stability (Pea-Garca et al., 2011), will be
considered here.

Table 1
Comparison of the relative energy savings obtained with pergola and tension
structures in the tunnel under consideration (PeglajarJan).
d (m)

w (m)

lS = N(w + d) (m)

1
1
1

5.40
8.60
11.80

3
2
2

19.2
19.2
25.6

Q tS
Qt

(%)

Pergolas

Tension structures

70
70
60

80
80
73

A. Pea-Garca, L.M. Gil-Martn / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 35 (2013) 172177

Given that one pergola cannot have any arbitrary length but
only lengths allowed by the sequence of its items, the smallest value above 15 m has been considered. In order to make comparison
with pergolas, feasible values of energy savings obtained in
(Pea-Garca et al., 2011), by means of the ESTS equation, have
been extrapolated. Table 1 shows a comparative of the results.

177

7. Intermediate solutions mixing the robustness of pergolas and

the uniformity of tension structures must be studied and considered as serious candidates to achieve remarkable energy savings in the electrical lighting of road tunnels.

Acknowledgement
3. Conclusions
After consideration of the results above, several conclusions can
be deduced.
1. General expressions for the light distribution under pergolas
which have not been reported in the literature up to now, have
been presented. They are valid irrespective of solar position and
tunnel orientation.
2. This light distribution depends on geometric factors such as the
dimensions of the pergola and solar position.
3. For low solar angles, for which there is no direct light from the
sun under the pergolas, any attempt of saving energy with these
structures is useless.
4. The requirement of mean uniformity on the road is never fullled when pergolas are used because there is no signicant
light in the shadowed zones relative to the sunlit zones.
5. Given that concrete is a suitable material, pergolas are a robust
solution and their maintenance is much more easier than the
maintenance of other classical methods to extend the threshold
zone of road tunnels such as tension structures.
6. Pergolas are more effective than tension structures in terms of
energy savings, but not in terms of uniformity when shifting
the threshold zone of the road tunnel.

This research work was carried out under the nancial support
provided by Spanish Ministry of Education and Science as part of
the Research Project BIA 2007-62595.
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