Predicting the Building Stone Cutting Rate Based on Rock Properties and Device Pullback Amperage in Quarries Using M5P Model Tree

One of the key parameters that affect the selection of equipment and the cost estimation of dimension stone quarries is the rock cutting rate or production rate. In this study, the M5P tree algorithm is used to determine the relationship between the hard rock sawability and its factors especially the physical and mechanical characteristics of rock. To achieve the research goal, a variety of eleven types of hard dimension stone were selected and nine major physical and mechanical characteristics of rock including uniaxial compressive strength, Young’s modulus, Brazilian tensile strength, equivalent quarts content, grain size, Mohs hardness, point load test, density and P-wave velocity of these samples were evaluated. The cutting rate of diamond wire for all of the Workpiece was measured at different pullback amperage with a fully instrumented cutting platform in laboratory. All operational parameters of cutting process were entirely controlled. Thus, a database containing 99 datasets was provided and it has been used for analyses. The obtained results from the pruned and unpruned tree models showed a significant relationship between cutting rate and its factors. In the end, the results of M5P tree method were compared with statistical analyses (i.e., linear and nonlinear regression). The coefficient of determination be equal with 0.92, 0.86, 0.77 and 0.63 for unpruned tree, pruned tree, linear and nonlinear regression method respectively. This comparison showed that the both method of M5P tree technique have a better performance in predicting the cutting rate rather than the statistical regression methods.     

Correlation of production rate of ornamental stone with rock brittleness indexes

The prediction of production rate in ornamental stones sawing is very important in cost estimation and process planning of the rock sawing plants. The main aim of this paper is finding a mathematical correlation between production rate and rock brittleness indexes. The utilized data have been collected from several stone factories in Iran. Seventeen different granite and carbonate rocks have been experienced sawing conditions with large-diameter circular saws. The laboratory tests such as uniaxial compressive strength and tensile strength, were carried out on the rock samples which were collected from these factories. The ratio of compressive strength to tensile strength (B ₁), the ratio of compressive strength minus tensile strength to compressive strength plus tensile strength (B ₂), and the area under the line of compressive strength and the line of tensile strength (B ₃) were used as brittleness indexes in this study. Then, the relationships between these brittleness indexes and production rate were investigated by using a regression analysis. The results show that, there is not a good relationship between the production rate and B ₁ and B ₂. However, the production rate correlates with B ₃ very well. Therefore, there is a reliable prediction for ornamental stones production based on B ₃ as a brittleness indexes.     

Geotechnical risk evaluation of tunneling projects using optimization techniques (case study: the second part of Emamzade Hashem tunnel)

Natural Hazards - Tunneling projects are generally complex projects with numerous affective factors, including variable and unreliable conditions of the land. One of the appropriate tools for...     

Developing the Rule of Thumb for Evaluating Penetration Rate of TBM,Using Binary Classification

Geotechnical and Geological Engineering - Using the tunnel boring machine (TBM) in tunneling projects contributes significantly to increased efficiency and reducing the time of project...