A novel hybrid fuzzy MCDM approach for the selection of building materials

Abstract

The selection of building materials is one of the most critical activities in the design of a building and is often observed to be a multi-criterion decision-making problem with conflicting and different objectives. This paper proposes a building material selection model based on a hybrid fuzzy MCDM techniques, a multi-criterion decision analysis approach. The fuzzy MCDM is used to prioritize and assign important weightings for evaluating criteria. Ratings of alternatives versus qualitative criteria and the importance weights of all the criteria are assessed in linguistic values represented by fuzzy numbers. Ranking formulae and membership functions for the final fuzzy evaluation values can be clearly developed for better executing the decision making. A numerical is used to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Keywords: Fuzzy MCDM, fuzzy logic, building materials selection, ranking, maximizing set and minimizing set.