Siliceous Concrete Materials Management for Sustainability Using Fuzzy-TOPSIS Approach

Abstract

Concrete manufacturing, a high energy and natural resources demanding process, can play a vital role in sustainable development by offering solutions to environmental and socio-economic issues. Concrete manufactured with siliceous materials can extend concrete life and reduce costs, and judicious management of siliceous utilization can make concrete manufacturing sustainable. A number of industrial and agro-based by-products, waste products, and new engineered materials are being use as siliceous material in concrete. The present research aims to implement the Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approach, a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique, for the orderly management of siliceous materials based on sustainable criteria, namely, technical, environmental, social, and economic aspects. The present research adopts twenty indicators of sustainability to evolve a comprehensive model for a sustainability ranking of concrete siliceous materials and to provide siliceous materials management. The present research also provides a methodology for the systematic ranking of sustainable criteria and indicators along with a siliceous materials sustainability order for enhanced sustainable development and management. It can be concluded that the proper material management of siliceous concrete materials, especially nano-engineered materials in construction industry, will help in the conservation of basic concrete materials and environmental protection without direct impact on social development.

Integration of Sustainability Criteria and Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment Method into Construction Material Selection in Developing Countries: The Case of Vietnam

“…Cost in the material transport [18,35,38] "Cost of the material transport" includes the costs of vehicles, trains, or ships in the material transportation process.…”

“…Cost in operation and maintenance phase [34][35][36][37][38] "Cost in operation and maintenance phase" includes the costs of fixing or replacing materials.…”

“…B4 Waste production management [18,36,38,39] "Waste production management" is the management of waste production. The number of recycling scraps represents this criterion.…”

A Consensus Measure of Expert Judgment in the Fuzzy TOPSIS Method

“…Aggregation of expert assessments on criteria in accordance with Equation (1) was also used in [39][40][41], where as part of creating hybrid approaches, the fuzzy TOPSIS method was combined with the Fuzzy AHP method. Examples of other fuzzy TOPSIS implementations using the technique of average value Shown in Equations (1) and (2) with TrFNs or trapezoidal fuzzy numbers (TFNs) were published in [42][43][44].…”

“…An important disadvantage of both techniques is the fact that the agreement degree of expert opinions is not taken into account (expert consensus). average value Shown in Equations (1) and (2) with TrFNs or trapezoidal fuzzy numbers (TFNs) were published in [42][43][44]. Another way to aggregate expert assessments and criteria weights expressed using TFNs, evaluation = , , , , and weight = , , , was presented by Chen et al [11].…”