Development of framework for ranking pervious concrete pavement mixtures: application of multi-criteria decision-making methods

ABSTRACT

The major objective of this study was to evaluate the performance characteristics of control and sand-modified pervious concrete (PC) mixtures through the development of a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tool to rank the materials and recommend the most optimal performing products. A full-factorial experimentation was adopted to analyse porosity, density, permeability, and compressive strength for 36 PC mixtures. A hybrid MCDM tool involving analytical hierarchy process, Entropy, Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), and VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) methods was used to optimize the multi-response problem into a single output. Based on the results, the water-to-cement ratio may be restricted to a maximum of 0.30 and 0.33 for aggregates varying from 9.5 to 6.7 mm and 6.7 to 4.75 mm, respectively. Likewise, the cement-to-aggregate ratio may be restricted to a maximum of 1:3.75 and 1:4.25 for aggregate size in the range 9.5–6.7 mm and 6.7–4.75 mm, respectively. Further, the ranks for various PC mixtures obtained from TOPSIS and VIKOR were identical/ similar for about 80% of the mixtures. The proposed MCDM tools are envisioned to help the decision-makers in selecting the most optimum PC mix based on performance and site-specific requirements, a priori pavement design and construction.

KEYWORDS:

• Multi-criteria decision-making
• pervious concrete
• mix proportions
• target properties
• TOPSIS
• VIKOR

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).