Multifactorial fuzzy approach to the sawability classification of building stones

The performances of circular sawing with diamond impregnated tools were evaluated in stone processing plants located in some areas of Turkey. Samples were collected from these factories for the laboratory tests. Uniaxial compressive strength, tensile strength, Schmidt hammer value, point load strength, impact strength, Los Angeles abrasion loss and P-wave velocity were determined in the laboratory. Performance measurements and stone properties were evaluated by using the multifactorial fuzzy approach which is a special case of multiple objective multifactorial decision making for the sawability classification of building stones. Using three different decision functions, the sawing performances of diamond saws were classified into three categories: excellent, good and poor. It is possible to evaluate the sawability and select a suitable diamond saw for a new building stone by only some stone properties testing using the developed fuzzy classification system. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Fundamental Research Fund of Shandong UniversityAuthors are deeply grateful to Nigde University Research Fund for the financial support. This work was partly conducted when the first author was a visiting research fellow at Erasmus University Rotterdam Department of Computer Science, supported by the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (Tubitak)