Modeling of sawability with diamond wire saw machine based on geomechanical parameters by using ICA: a new model for production rate estimation

Performance prediction of diamond wire saws and estimation of sawability are important in the cost estimation and the planning rock cutting projects. In this paper, the performance prediction of diamond wire saws in cutting carbonate rocks is considered on 14 different carbonate rocks in stone quarries. Uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), Brazilian tensile strength (BCS), Schmidt hammer value (SHv), Los Angeles (LA) abrasion and production rate (Ph) of diamond wire saws are determined in separated reference. The scope of this study is to evaluate the capability of two different methods in order to predict production rate of carbonate rock using diamond wire saw. A non-linear model presented by Ataei et al. and new proposed non-linear model are presented. An application of Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) is used to determine the non-linear production rate estimator coefficients. According to the calculated statistical error between the forecasted and real measured values of production rate, ICA-based model has the lower values of MAPE, MAE, VARE, MEDAE and RMSE than the previous model in the literature, while it has the higher value of VAF than the previous model in the literature. It is concluded that the production rate of carbonate rock using diamond wire saw can reliably be estimated using the developed model.