Model for the Sustainable Material Selection by Applying Integrated Dempster-Shafer Evidence Theory and Additive Ratio Assessment (ARAS) Method

Abstract

The construction industry is a vital part of the modern economic system. Construction work often has significant negative impacts on the environment and sustainable economic development, such as degradation of the environment, depletion of resources, and waste generation. Therefore, environmental concerns must be taken into account when evaluating and making decisions in the construction industry. In this regard, sustainable construction is considered as the best way to avoid resource depletion and address environmental concerns. Selection of sustainable building materials is an important strategy in sustainable construction that plays an important role in the design and construction phase of buildings. The assessment of experts is one of the most important steps in the material selection process, and their subjective judgment can lead to unpredictable uncertainty. The existing methods cannot effectively demonstrate and address uncertainty. This paper proposes an integrated Dempster-Shafer (DS) theory of evidence and the ARAS method for selecting sustainable materials under uncertainty. The Dempster-Shafer Evidence Theory is a relatively new and appropriate tool for substantiating decisions when information is nonspecific, ambiguous, or conflicting. The Additive Ratio Assessment (ARAS) method has many advantages to deal with MCDM problems with non-commensurable and even conflicting criteria and to obtain the priority of alternatives based on the utility function. The proposed method converts experts’ opinions into the basic probability assignments for real alternatives, which are suitable for DS evidence theory. It uses the ARAS method to obtain final estimation results. Finally, a real case study identifying the priority of using five possible alternative building materials demonstrates the usefulness of the proposed approach in addressing the challenges of sustainable construction. Four main criteria including economic, social, environmental, and technical criteria and 25 sub-criteria were considered for the selection of sustainable materials. The specific case study using the proposed method reveals that the weight of economic, socio-cultural, environmental, and technical criteria are equal to 0.327, 0.209, 0.241, and 0.221, respectively. Based on these results, economic and environmental criteria are determined as the most important criteria. The results of applying the proposed method reveal that aluminum siding with a final score of 0.538, clay brick with a score of 0.494, and stone façade with a final score of 0.482 are determined as the best alternatives in terms of sustainability.

Sustainability Assessment of a Low-Income Building: A BIM-LCSA-FAHP-Based Analysis

“…The large number of resources required for the construction and retrofit of buildings gradually brought sustainable construction into focus [24]. In this sense, the selection of suitable and sustainable building materials during the design stage has a direct impact on the entire life cycle of the building [25,26], promoting the reduction of its cost, allowing a better use of natural resources, reducing the generation of waste during construction and operation stages, optimizing energy consumption, and providing a healthier environment for users [27,28]. Therefore, several researchers conclude that the correct selection of materials is one of the simplest and most efficient ways to incorporate sustainability in the construction industry [25,29,30].…”

“…Choosing between different construction materials that will provide the best economic, environmental, and social performance when applied together is a complex multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problem, requiring interdisciplinary knowledge [28,32,51]. A multicriteria analysis is required when dealing with multi-faceted events by combining qualitative and quantitative techniques [52,53], that include the consideration of multiple criteria simultaneously [54,55].…”

ARAS method based on Z‐numbers in FMEA

“…In addition, the ratio with the optimal alternative is important both in ranking and improving the alternatives. 33 Considering these characteristics of ARAS method, it provides many advantages to the decision maker. The most important of these is that it can quickly and easily solve complex problems including conflict criteria based on simple relative comparisons.…”

“…In ARAS method, the priorities of the alternatives are determined according to their utility function values. In addition, the ratio with the optimal alternative is important both in ranking and improving the alternatives 33 . Considering these characteristics of ARAS method, it provides many advantages to the decision maker.…”

A Dempster-Shafer evidence theory for environmental risk assessment in failure modes and effects analysis of Oil and Gas Exploitation Plant

“…Several applications of evidence theory can be seen in the concerned literature due to its effectiveness and flexibility in dealing with uncertain and subjective information [26][27].…”