Sawability ranking of carbonate rock using fuzzy analytical hierarchy process and TOPSIS approaches

The aim of this paper is developing a new hierarchical model to evaluate and rank the sawability (power consumption) of carbonate rock with the use of effective and major criteria, and simultaneously taking subjective judgments of decision makers into consideration. The proposed approach is based on the combination of Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) method with TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) methods. FAHP is used for determining the weights of the criteria by decision makers, and then rankings of carbonate rocks are determined by TOPSIS. The proposed method is applied for Iranian ornamental stone to evaluate the power consumption in rock sawing process. A variety of two groups of carbonate rocks (7 types) were sawn, using a fully-instrumented laboratory cutting rig at different feed rate (200, 300, 400 cm min−1) at constant peripheral speed (1770 rpm) and depth of cut (35 mm). During the sawing trials, the ampere and power consumption were monitored and calculated as performance characteristics of the saws. The results of the sawing trials (power consumption) were used to verify the result of the applied approach for ranking the carbonate rock sawability. It was concluded that the sawability of carbonate rocks can reliably be ranked, using the developed approach.