Cutting performance of chain saw and diamond wire machines in beige marble quarry

Increase of world population brings a high demand to natural stone which gives a growing trend to natural stone production technology. Chain saw machines and diamond wire machines have an important position among the machines/methods which are used for production of stone blocks. For today, problem is not the production of natural stones but the production rates and costs. Preliminary results of a project supported by Tubitak (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, Project No: 112M860) are presented in this paper. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationships between mechanical properties of beige marble and field cutting performance of chain saw and diamond wire machines. In the first stage of this study, the field cutting performance parameters (power, torque, thrust, production rate etc.) of a chain saw machine and a diamond wire machine used in Tumas Marble Industry located in Korkuteli-Turkey is summarized. Secondly, the beige marble block samples (30×30×30 cm³) are obtained from the field in order to carry out a set of physical and mechanical tests and also mineralogical and petrographical analysis to define the textural properties of beige marble. In the final stage of the study, the relationships between textural, physical and mechanical properties and the field cutting performance of machines are investigated.