Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering 31 (2016) 717729
Multicriteria Evaluation of Building
Foundation Alternatives
Zenonas Turskis, Alfonsas Daniunas, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas* & Jurgis Medzvieckas
Research Institute of Smart Building Technologies, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Vilnius LT-10223, Lithuania
Abstract: In real conditions, decision makers usually
deal with multiple objectives and should make a deci-
sion in a state of certainty or uncertainty. The selection
of the best constructions for a building from a number
of alternatives is of great importance for owners, con-
tractors, and stakeholders. Dozens of multicriteria/multi-
attribute decision-making (MCDM/MADM) models de-
veloped for evaluating the performance of the available
alternatives can be used for selecting the most suitable
alternative from a given finite set of options based on a
set of attributes. A guide to systematic selection among
the available alternatives of building structures is the in-
tegrated methodology, thoroughly analyzed in the article.
The article presents a MCDM model for selecting the type
of foundation for a single-storey dwelling house based
on the WASPAS-G (Weighted Aggregated Sum Prod-
uct Assessment) method and Analytic Hierarchy Pro-
cess (AHP) approach. The aggregate criteria weights are
determined by using the AHP and experts judgement
methods.
1 INTRODUCTION
The increasing competition and stakeholders demands,
as well as the scale of production and consumption
cause a lot of construction problems. In the report of
European Foundation for the Improvement of Living
and Working Conditions (Eurofound, 2013), the main
factor, reflecting a negative effect on life satisfaction of
people which is associated with housing, is the feeling
of insecurity in their houses. In the European countries,
living in cities and medium-to-large towns has been
associated with some loss of life satisfaction compared
to living in the countryside. This has been caused by
housing problems. Now, people build or buy houses
Towhom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: edmundas.
zavadskas@vgtu.lt.

C 2016 Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering.
DOI: 10.1111/mice.12202
in a much more responsible way, carefully considering
and weighing all the details. Everyone wants to have a
quality and durable house at the lowest possible cost.
About one-third of Europeans live in individual houses.
A lot of works and materials to design and construct
such houses is consumed. Nevertheless, scientists and
researchers pay little attention to examine and investi-
gate simple problems. This occurs because they believe
that implementation of simple construction projects is
very easy, and not worth any more attention. In their
point of view, it is better to focus on optimization of
a complex and large project. However, when a simple
problem is solved and is being implemented hundreds of
thousands of times, the problems solution brings much
more benefit than an optimization of a single complex
project. In fact, only expenditures will be determined
bigger depending on the building size, whereas ranking
of possible discrete alternatives will remain the same or
similar. The construction scheme of an economic single-
storey dwelling house is usually simple. It consists of
masonry (brick, ceramic, etc.) walls installed on shallow
foundation or piles. It is clear that engineering and tech-
nological projects are also business projects. They in-
volve such aspects associated with business as customer
satisfaction, resource utilization, deadlines, costs, prof-
its, etc. The variables, such as the environment, terrain,
soil conditions, zoning laws, labor market, and local
utilities, make every project unique. This requires doing
something different from what has been done before.
One of the most important activities in management is
the performance measurement-based decision making
(Li et al., 2011; Zavadskas et al., 2012c). A great ma-
jority of numerous papers published on optimization of
structures deal with multicriteria optimization (Sarma
and Adeli, 2000). The total structural optimization of
the building material cost involves many components,
including foundation, slabs, beams, columns, bracings,
718 Turskis, Daniunas, Zavadskas & Medzvieckas

Fig. 1. The decision-making scheme of foundations.

a
4150 d

50 kN/m
120 kN/m b
60 kN/m
80 kN/m

180 kN/m

350 kN b
120 kN/m 50 kN/m

b
65 kN/m 350 kN 110 kN/m
160 kN/m

c
160 kN/m 180 kN/m

40 kN/m
50 kN/m
b
40 kN/m 65 kN/m

Fig. 2. The plan of walls with the applied loads and foundation alternatives: a shows shallow foundations deepened to 1.0 and
1.5 m; b denotes 0.5 and 0.6 m diameter short bored piles; c denotes 0.3 m diameter bored piles.

belt or outrigger trusses, and shear walls (Aldwaik and
Adeli, 2014). A foundation is a very important element
of a building, which does not only ensure the stability
of building structures, but also accounts for a significant
part of the total house construction cost. In many cases,
the idea of selection is based on subjective preferences
and scope of knowledge of individuals. The choice
is objective and seldom systematic. The foundation
types are usually chosen based on the designers and
builders opinions and experience, regardless of the
specific engineering-geological conditions and features
of the house structure (Mangushev, 2004; Susinskas
et al., 2014). When selecting a type of foundation, it is
necessary to take into account engineering-geological
conditions, climate impact, ground water levels, specific
features of the structure, and builders technological
capabilities (Oloufa and Ikeda, 1995; Lepre et al., 2010;
Tezcan and Ozdemir, 2012). Usually, the installation
cost, materials, the excavated soil, the equipment used,
etc. determine the foundation type selection. The
model predicts the expected cost and the duration of
the project, depending on the input parameters, such
as the production rate, the scope of the work, time
schedule, bonding conditions, maximum and minimum
deviations from the volume of work. Clients are able
to make proper decisions concerning the time and cost
schedules of their investments (Beran and Hromada,
2008). One of the ways to find the most suitable so-
lution is associated with multicriteria decision-making
or multi-attribute decision-making methods (MCDM
or MADM) (Hwang and Yoon, 1981; Ishizaka and
Nemery, 2013; Xu, 2015). The procedure of selecting
 Multicriteria evaluation of building foundation alternatives
the best alternative of the foundation type is given in
Figure 1.
2 THE SELECTION OF THE FOUNDATION FOR
A SINGLE-STOREY DWELLING HOUSE
The foundation alternatives for a single-storey dwelling
house were selected for multiple criteria evaluation.
The foundations were designed according to a standard
single-storey house project. The plan of the loads on the
building wall foundations and their alternatives are pre-
sented in Figure 2.
Rationality of construction works and the appropri-
ate choice of technologies make the most challenging
tasks in real life (Zavadskas et al., 2012a). The de-
sign and construction of foundations require the pro-
found knowledge of the mechanical behavior of soils
and their spatial variability (Sivilevicius et al., 2012).
Sandy ground having different geotechnical properties
( is the unit weight; is the internal friction angle; qc
is the cone resistance) is one of the most common con-
struction sites. Sandy ground has been chosen for eval-
uating the foundation alternatives. Geotechnical prop-
erties of sandy ground are presented in Table 1. Sands
of various densities cover 32% of Lithuanian territory
(Dundulis, 1997), therefore, the foundations are often
installed in these soils.
In most cases for one-storey houses, standard shal-
low foundations are constructed. The city plan can show
the areas whose potential for urban development leads
to occupation suitable for the construction of shallow
foundations in one-storey residential buildings (Lorandi
and Mendes, 2010). Shallow foundations can be mono-
lithic or prefabricated. The reinforcement amount for
shallow foundations of one-storey building is negligi-
ble. The bottom of foundation is placed on the lev-
elled ground. The bottom part may be wider and it dis-
tributes the load to the base. The walls or foundation
blocks are installed on pads. Wall units can be placed
directly on the levelled ground if the base bearing ca-
pacity is sufficient to withstand the loads. The calcu-
lations of base bearing capacity are regulated by LST
EN 1997-1 (2006). The foundation installation technol-
ogy is simple. A trench is excavated to the foundation
pad level on the site, then, concrete monolithic founda-
tions or prefabricated foundations are laid. The width
of the pit should be sufficient to smooth out and com-
pact the soil before installing the foundation. When the
foundations are installed, the excavation is filled with
soil which is compacted layer after layer. A base of the
foundation can be strengthened to improve its proper-
ties. This reduces the amount of the required material,
but not necessarily the foundation installation cost. In
719
Table 1
Densities and geotechnical properties of sands
Soil properties
qc
Type Soil (kN/m3 ) (MPa)
1 Loose sand (LS) 17.50 3132 3.05.0
2 Average density sand (AS) 18.50 3436 6.010.0
3 Dense sand (DS) 19.50 3739 12.020.0
civil engineering practice, the compressed sand cushions
(Usmanov, 2013) and soil reinforcement are used in
loose and high compressibility soils (Kolay et al., 2013).
Foundations deepened to 1.0 and 1.5 m are designed for
various types of sandy ground. The expenditure of ma-
terials for shallow foundations is presented in Table 2.
Short bored piles are also often used as building foun-
dations. The top layer of the soil throughout most parts
of Lithuania consists of quaternary sediments which are
shaped by the receding ice shield. Naturally formed
glacial sand and clay derivatives cover 79% of the coun-
trys territory (Dundulis, 1997). These derivatives are
relatively strong and suitable for the foundation base.
Short piles are easy to install by using the effective
drilling machines. The analysis of piles of various forms
has shown that maximum efficiency was achieved un-
der the minimum depth of 2 meters, and gradually de-
creased later (Bulatov and Kolosova, 2013).
Researchers have shown that quantitative values of
pile efficiency are approximately the same for cross-
sections of various forms. The increase in the bearing
capacity of piles is now often achieved by special treat-
ment of pile bases after concrete placement, as well
as by increasing the pile length and diameter. The re-
sults obtained show that the postgrouting to the shaft
and tip of the pile can increase bearing capacity of de-
fected bored piles two times and by about 20% com-
pared to that of the normal bored piles (Nguyen et al.,
2013). Short piles are rigid, and when the transverse
forces and/or bending moments are acting, the foun-
dation does not deform. This is their main difference
from the conventional bored piles. Compared to shal-
low foundations, short piles have many advantages, in-
cluding more effective use of materials and sub-grade
because the load on the base is transmitted not only by
the tip, but also by the lateral surface. The settlement
of these foundations is lower. Moreover, the extrac-
tive work during installation is reduced because only
the ground required for the foundation is excavated.
The installation process is quick: the holes are drilled
on the site and filled with concrete after inserting the
720 Turskis, Daniunas, Zavadskas & Medzvieckas

Table 2
Expenditure of materials for shallow foundations

Depth, Concrete Reinforcement Excavated soil

Alternatives Soil d (m) (m3 ) kG (m3 )
A1 LS 1.0 37.939.2 232.1257.3 205.3216.8
AS 36.237.3 199.9226.5 189.7200.4
DS 35.335.8 190.7196.3 178.4185.7
A2 LS 1.5 48.048.9 201.9225.6 314.0328.4
AS 46.947.4 190.7196.3 294.3306.2
DS 46.446.5 186.2187.1 279.3287.9

reinforcement. On the top of bored foundations, a re- Table 3

inforced beam is installed. Bored foundations are de- Expenditure of materials for pile alternatives
signed in accordance with the National Building Code
Expenditure of materials for 0.3 m diameter bored piles
RSN 91-85 (1987). The design strength of the ground
is defined by the cone resistance qc determined by the Pile Pile cap
cone penetration test (CPT). In DS 0.6 m diameter piles
are obtained too short and cannot be used. Reinforce- Reinforce-
For a single-storey dwelling house, the cavity is more Concrete ment Concrete ment
often formed during drilling. Soil is raised to the surface. Soil (m3 ) kG (m3 ) kG
In weak and water-saturated soils, the protective tube A3 AS 9.618.3 207.0367.2 14.0 727.6
is used in drilling. Bored pile installation embraces the DS 5.28.1 127.1177.5
procedures of preparing the borehole cavity, inserting
the reinforcement, and removing the protective tube. Expenditure of materials for 0.5 m diameter bored piles
At present, continuous flight auger piles known as CFA
Pile Pile cap
piles are often installed. This technology ensures fast
and reliable installation of piles (Zayed, 2005). The rein- Reinforce- Reinforce-
forcement is placed after placing the concrete. In weak Concrete ment Concrete ment
soil, displacement piles are usually installed (Kelevisius Soil (m3 ) kG (m3 ) kG
et al., 2014). Using a vibrator, an inventory tube with a
A4 LS 29.953.0 226.1378.0 14.0 727.6
cap at the end is pressed into soil. Tube is pulled out AS 14.823.4 127.8184.0
after it filled up with concrete. A reinforced beam is DS 12.8 113.4
installed on the piles. Pile foundations are designed by
LST EN 1997-1 (2006) and LST EN 1997-2 (2009) rec- Expenditure of materials for 0.6 m diameter bored piles
ommendations. Piles of 0.3 m in diameter are designed
for the selected type of soil. LS is assumed to be inap- Pile Pile cap
propriate for pile installation. The expenditure of mate-
Reinforce- Reinforce-
rials for piles is presented in Table 3.
Concrete ment Concrete ment
Soil (m3 ) kG (m3 ) kG
A6 LS 34.159.0 186.1301.3 14.0 727.6
3 MULTI-ATTRIBUTE EVALUATION OF AS 19.228.0 118.8162.4
FOUNDATION ALTERNATIVES

MADM (also called multi-objective decision making

with finite alternatives) is an important component
of modern operations research science. Essentially,
MADM involves making preference decisions over the
available set of alternatives that are characterized by
multiple, usually conflicting, attributes. The problem of
making the appropriate decisions by individuals and
institutions was discussed by Aristotle (1990). Even
Benjamin Franklin (MacCrimmon, 1973) in 1772 pro-
posed a procedure and rules for decision making, pro-
viding moral or prudential algebra for coordinating
multiple attributes in everyday decisions, and suggested
a workable solution. There are lots of MCDM methods
that are suitable for multi-attribute problems solution
(Jato-Espino et al., 2014).
 Multicriteria evaluation of building foundation alternatives
Most of multi-attribute decision-making methods
share a common number of steps as follows:
1. Define the relevant goals;
2. Determine the alternatives to be evaluated;
3. Identify the relevant attributes for evaluating the
alternatives;
4. Determine weights (relative importance) of the
attributes;
5. Score each attribute of each alternative;
6. Select a scoring method and calculate the multi-
attribute utilities of various options; and
7. Perform postevaluation analysis.
In real life, decision makers are usually faced with
multiple objectives and need to make a decision in a
state of uncertainty (Xu and Yao, 2011). Grey systems
theory, probability and statistics, and fuzzy mathemat-
ics are the three most frequently used methods deal-
ing with unascertained problems. Due to the increasing
complexity and uncertainty of objects and the fuzziness
of human thought, much more attention has been paid
to the investigation of MADM under uncertain environ-
ments, and fruitful research results have been achieved
over the last decades (Xu, 2015). As people were getting
more knowledge about uncertain events, the methods of
research into the problems of random multi-objective
decision making, fuzzy multi-objective decision making,
rough multi-objective decision making, and two-fold
uncertain multi-objective decision making were gradu-
ally developed (Xu and Zhou, 2011). A great number of
researchers have been applying intuitionistic fuzzy sets
to multi-attribute decision making in various situations
(Xu, 2014).
Furthermore, global optimization problems also in-
volve multiple criteria. Cheng et al. (2015) stated that
integrating several strategies into one algorithm and
determining the application rate of each strategy as
well as the associated parameter values online had be-
come an ad-hoc research topic. They proposed a novel
differential evolution (DE) algorithm related to mul-
ticriteria adaptive DE (MADE) for global numerical
optimization.
Arce et al. (2015) pointed out that one of the prob-
lems with analyzing a MADM problem is a lack of
data, especially, in empirical works. To address this
constraint, grey relational methods could be used in
research works. The grey system theory and method
applicable to the study of unascertained problems with
few data and (or) poor information were first proposed
by Deng (1982). Grey-related analysis is a technique
that can be applied to both fuzzy and crisp data. There
721
are three types of grey model construction, which
are as follows (Liu and Lin, 2006, 2010):
1. Grey rules of situation: Grey rules of situation deal
with strategy making based on multi-objects that
are contradictory in an ordinary way.
2. Grey decision-making group: This field includes
grey relational space, grey statistics, grey cluster-
ing, and grey prediction.
3. Grey programming.
In the following four general cases, system informa-
tion manifests itself as incomplete or grey information
(Fang et al., 2009):
1. Incomplete information of elements (parameters);
2. Incomplete structural information;
3. Incomplete information of boundaries;
4. Incomplete information of systems behavior.
There are dozens of studies and problem solution
models dealing with the application of the grey system
theory in construction. For example, Zavadskas et al.
(2008) presented the selection of the effective dwelling
house walls based on grey attribute values (the main
ideas of a new COPRAS-G method were presented).
Tserng et al. (2015) integrated the grey system theory
with all available firm-year samples during the sample
period and provided a new method for predicting the
probability of the construction firm default.
The Weighted Aggregated Sum Product (WASPAS)
method was originally described and presented by
Zavadskas et al. (2012c). There is a limited number
of the WASPAS method with crisp values applications
to solving the construction problems. Recently, An-
tucheviciene et al. (2015) have developed and presented
the WASPAS-G method.
3.1 Operations with grey numbers
Let a grey number G be defined by two parameters
and , which are called the lower and upper limits
of a grey number (interval number) G = [G , G ] =
{x|G x G , G and G R}. Let +, , , and
denote the operations of addition, subtraction, multipli-
cation, and division, respectively. According to the in-
terval of confidence (Kaufmann and Gupta, 1985), some
basic operations with positive grey numbers G 1 and
G 2 can be expressed as follows:
G 1 + G 2 = (G 1 + G 2 , G 1 ) + (G 2 ) Addition (1)
G 1 G 2 = (G 1 G 2 , G 1 G 2 ) Subtraction (2)
722 Turskis, Daniunas, Zavadskas & Medzvieckas

G 1 G 2 = (G 1 G 2 , G 1 G 2 ) Multiplication (3) ues xi j of the normalized decision-making matrix

X :
 
G 1 G 1
G 1 G 2 = , , only if G 1 , G 2 , G 1 , x01 x0 j x0n
G 2 G 2 .. .. .. .. ..
. . . . .
and G 2 does not contain 0 division (4)
X =
xi1 xi j xin

. .. .. .. .. (8)
.. . . . .
xm1 xm j xmn
k (G 1 ) = (kG 1 , kG 1 ) Grey number multiplied
by positive real number k (5) i = 0, m; j = 1, n

The attributes, whose preferable values are maximal,

  are normalized as follows:
1 1
(G 1 )1 = , ; (G 1 )k = ((G 1 )k , (G 1 )k )
G 1 G 1 xi j
xij = max xi j
k
if G 1 and G 1 1 , and k  1 ; (G 1 ) = (1, 1) , i
(9)
xi j xi j
G 1 if and G 1 1 and k = 0 . Exponentiation by a or xija = max xi j
and xi jb = max xi j
i i

natural power k (6)

The attributes, whose preferable values are minimal,
are normalized as follows:

min xi j
i
3.2 Grey extension of WASPAS method: WASPAS-G xij =
xi j
method
(10)
The Weighted Sum Model (WSM) is one of the best min xi j min xi j
i i
known and commonly used MADM methods for evalu- or xij = and xi j =
ating the number of alternatives in terms of the number xi j xi j
of decision attributes. It is based on the assumption that
the phenomena of the complicated world could be un- When the dimensionless values of the attributes are
derstood based on simple comparisons. known, all the attributes, originally having different di-
The first stage is associated with the formation of grey mensions, can be compared.
decision-making matrix (GDMM). In the GMADM of a Usually, the performance values xi j and the at-
discrete optimization problem any problem to be solved tribute weights w j (denotes the relative significance
is represented by the following DMM of preferences for of the attribute) are viewed as the entries of a DMM.
m reasonable alternatives (rows) rated on n attributes The third stage is defining normalized-weighted
(columns) describing each alternative as follows: matrix - X . It is possible to evaluate the attributes
with weights 0 < w j < 1. Only well-founded weights

x01 x0 j x0n should be used because weights are always subjective
.. .. .. .. .. and influence the solution. The values of weight wj are
. . . . .
usually determined by the expert evaluation method.

X = xi1 xi j xin The sum of weights w j would be limited as follows:
. .. .. .. .. (7)
.. . . . .
xm1 xm j xmn

n
wj = 1 (11)
j=1
i = 0, m; j = 1, n

xi j = (xi j , xi j ) is a grey value representing the The values of all the normalized attributes are
performance of the ith alternative in terms of the jth at- weighted by defining the values xi j of the normalized-
tribute. weighted decision-making matrix X :
At the second stage, the initial values of all
the attributes are normalized by defining the val- xi j = xi j w j ; i = 0, m (12)
 Multicriteria evaluation of building foundation alternatives 723

Table 4
Foundation alternatives considered for LS

Criteria

Concrete Excavated Duration of Installation Reinforcement Mechanisms

Alternatives Depth (m) (m3 ) soil (m3 ) works (hours) cost () (kg) (hours)
x1 x2 x3 x4 x5 x6

Weight (w) 0.1304 0.2376 0.0652 0.1699 0.0539 0.1330 0.2464 0.4388 0.1823 0.2568 0.0303 0.0652
w (without x4 ) 0.1958 0.3092 0.0447 0.2055 0.0789 0.3603 0 0 0.1983 0.4444 0.0520 0.1983
A1 1.0 37.9 39.2 205.3 216.8 249.3 257.9 7584.8 7845.0 232.10 257.30 28.9 29.9
A2 1.5 48.0 48.9 314.0 328.4 315.8 321.7 9606.1 9786.2 201.90 225.60 32.4 33.1
Diameter (m)
A4 0.5 43.9 67.0 52.7 80.4 252.4 385.3 12638.0 19288.1 953.7 1105.6 65.9 100.5
A5 0.6 48.1 73.0 57.7 87.6 276.6 419.8 13847.1 21015.4 913.7 1028.9 72.2 109.5

Table 5
Foundation alternatives considered for AS

Criteria

Concrete Excavated Duration of Installation Reinforcement Mechanisms

Alternatives Depth (m) (m3 ) soil (m3 ) works (hours) cost () (kg) (hours)
x1 x2 x3 x4 x5 x6

Weight (w) 0.1304 0.2376 0.0652 0.1699 0.0539 0.1330 0.2464 0.4388 0.1823 0.2568 0.0303 0.0652
w (without x4 ) 0.1958 0.3092 0.0447 0.2055 0.0789 0.3603 0 0 0.1983 0.4444 0.0520 0.1983
A1 1.0 36.2 37.3 189.7 200.4 238.2 245.4 7244.3 7464.5 199.90 226.50 27.6 28.4
A2 1.5 46.9 47.4 294.3 306.2 308.6 311.8 9385.6 9485.7 190.70 196.30 35.8 36.1
Diameter (m)
A3 0.3 23.6 32.3 28.32 38.76 135.7 185.7 6794.0 9298.6 934.6 1094.8 35.4 48.5
A4 0.5 28.8 37.4 34.56 44.88 165.6 215.1 8291.0 10766.8 855.4 911.6 43.2 56.1
A5 0.6 33.2 42 39.84 50.4 190.9 241.5 9567.3 12103.2 846.4 890 83.0 105.0

where w j is the weight (significance) of the jth attribute where Q i is the value of the additive optimality func-
and xi j is the normalized value of the jth attribute. tion for ith alternative.
According to the Weighted Product Model (WPM),
x01 x0 j x0n the total relative importance of the alternative i denoted
.. .. .. .. ..
. . . . . by Pi is defined as follows:

X = x i1 x ij x
in 
n
. (13) w j
.. . .. .
.. . .. .
.. Pi = xi j , or
j=1
xm1 xm j xmn

n 
w w
i = 0, m; j = 1, n Pi = 0.5 xi j j + xi j j (15)
j=1
The following task is the determining of the optimal-
ity function values: An attempt was made to use an integrated multi-
attribute utility value for determining the total perfor-

n
mance of the alternative Kt (Zavadskas et al., 2012b)
Qi = xi j , or
j=1
according to the WASPAS method, assuming equal
contribution of WSM ( Qi ) and WPM ( Pi ) to the

n
total score:
Q i = 0.5 (xi j + xi j ) , i = 0, m (14)
j=1 K i = 0.5 Q i + 0.5 Pi (16)
724 Turskis, Daniunas, Zavadskas & Medzvieckas

Table 6
Foundation alternatives considered for DS

Criteria

Concrete Excavated Duration of Installation Reinforcement Mechanisms

Alternatives Depth (m) (m3 ) soil (m3 ) works (hours) cost () (kg) (hours)
x1 x2 x3 x4 x5 x6

Weight (w) 0.1304 0.2376 0.0652 0.1699 0.0539 0.1330 0.2464 0.4388 0.1823 0.2568 0.0303 0.0652
w (without x4 ) 0.1958 0.3092 0.0447 0.2055 0.0789 0.3603 0 0 0.1983 0.4444 0.0520 0.1983
A1 1.0 35.3 35.8 178.4 185.7 232.2 235.5 7064.2 7164.3 190.70 196.30 26.9 27.3
A2 1.5 46.4 46.5 279.3 287.9 305.2 305.9 9285.6 9305.6 186.20 187.10 35.4 35.5
Diameter (m)
A3 0.3 19.2 22.1 23.04 26.52 110.4 127.1 5527.3 6362.2 854.7 905.1 28.8 33.2
A4 0.5 26.8 26.8 32.16 32.16 154.1 154.1 7715.2 7715.2 841 841 40.2 40.2

Based on the previous research and supposing the in-

crease of ranking accuracy, as well as the effectiveness
of decision making, it was offered to determine K i as
follows (Zavadskas et al., 2012b):

n 
n
w j
Ki = xi j + (1 ) xi j
j=1 j=1

= 0, . . . , 1 (17)

The value could be determined in different ways.

In this case, is determined as a lever based on the as-
sumption that the total WSM performance score of all
alternatives should be equal to the total of WPM per-
formance score:
m
i=1 Pi
= m m (18)
i=1 Q i + i=1 Pi

Archimedes explained levers mechanical advantage,

or leverage, in his work On the Equilibrium of Planes
and is noted for his claim Give me a place to stand
and a long enough lever and I can move the Earth.
Archimedes explanation of the theory of the lever
is based on the principle of balancing the input and
output torques about the fulcrum of the device so
that, the input force multiplied by its distance from
the fulcrum, is equal to the weight (or downward
force) of the load multiplied by its distance from the
fulcrum.
Fig. 3. Determining of criteria weights.
The calculated values K i are in the interval [0; 1] and
can be arranged in the ascending order, which is the
wanted order of precedence. teria describing the foundation installation are calcu-
lated using standard tariffs. According to the load pre-
sented in Figure 2, five alternatives of foundations are
3.3 Problems solution
possible: A1 is a shallow foundation deepened to 1.0 m;
The foundation selection problem is solved by apply- A2 is a shallow foundation deepened to 1.5 m; A3 de-
ing the above described model. The values of the cri- notes the 0.3 m diameter bored piles; A4 denotes a 0.5 m
 Multicriteria evaluation of building foundation alternatives 725

Fig. 4. Entering input data into MCDSS WEAR for one expert, using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method.

Table 7
Weight coefficients based on experts judgement, taking into account the installation cost

diameter bored short pile; A5 is a 0.6 m diameter bored
short pile. The alternative A3 , representing the 0.3 m di-
ameter bored piles, was considered to be inappropriate
for LS. For DS, the alternative A5 , representing a 0.6
m diameter bored pile, is too short and, therefore, can-
not be treated as a short pile. Therefore, it was not con-
sidered as an alternative. Six criteria were selected for
evaluating foundations: x1 denotes the amount of con-
crete; x2 is the excavated soil; x3 denotes the duration
of works; x4 denotes the installation cost; x5 denotes the
reinforcement amount; x6 denotes the working time of
mechanisms. The considered alternatives representing
the installation of foundations in LS, AS, and DS are
presented in Tables 46. Because the cost of materials,
mechanisms, and work duration make the basic cost, the
alternatives given in Tables 46 were calculated with-
out taking into account the installation cost criterion
(weight of x4 is equal to 0).
Expert systems have been employed for solving var-
ious complicated problems and providing advice (Lee
et al., 2011). These solutions have been adopted to man-
age civil engineering problems (Ahmadlou and Adeli,
2010; Reuter and Moller, 2010; Hasanzadehshooiili
et al., 2012).
726 Turskis, Daniunas, Zavadskas & Medzvieckas

Table 8
Weight coefficients based on experts judgement, not taking into account the installation cost

Table 9
The integrated ranks of foundation alternatives obtained using WASPAS-G method.

Type of sand

Loose Average density Dense

Expenditures are included

R R R
Alternatives Q P K (Rank) Q P K (Rank) Q P K (Rank)
A1 0.873 0.778 0.821 1 0.753 0.591 0.649 1 0.206 0.564 0.390 4
A2 0.758 0.688 0.720 2 0.645 0.511 0.559 2 0.682 0.465 0.570 3
A3 0.747 0.480 0.575 3 0.578 0.576 0.577 2
A4 0.572 0.421 0.489 3 0.634 0.453 0.517 4 0.760 0.489 0.620 1
A5 0.528 0.403 0.460 4 0.550 0.394 0.449 5
= 2.731 2.290 = 0.456 3.329 1.838 = 0.356 2.226 2.095 = 0.485
Expenditures are not included
A1 0.895 0.803 0.844 1 0.726 0.661 0.687 1 0.197 0.596 0.393 4
A2 0.814 0.682 0.741 2 0.650 0.547 0.588 4 0.686 0.480 0.585 3
A3 0.709 0.584 0.634 2 0.609 0.660 0.634 1=2
A4 0.626 0.446 0.526 3 0.606 0.530 0.560 3 0.712 0.522 0.634 1=2
A5 0.581 0.423 0.494 4 0.512 0.471 0.487 5
= 2.915 2.353 = 0.447 3.203 2.131 = 0.400 2.203 2.288 = 0.509
Final ranks

A1 1 1 4
A2 2 3 3
A3 2 2
A4 3 4 1
A5 4 5

Not all the criteria are of equal importance. The role
of the weights is to reflect relative importance of each of
the attributes with respect to other attributes. In prac-
tice, it is often difficult to determine the relative im-
portance of the criteria. Different theories of criteria
weight determination have been developed. There are
three main approaches to determining the relative sig-
nificance of attributes (Hwang and Yoon, 1981):
1. The subjective approach: Delphi Method, The
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP method),
 Multicriteria evaluation of building foundation alternatives
Additive Normalization Method, Expert Judge-
ment Method, SWARA method, etc.
2. The objective approach (which deals only with
the criteria values in the defined set of alter-
natives and criteria, but does not show the real
importance of criteria and preferences of decision
maker): Entropy method (generates the criteria
weights directly from the value of the criterion
for each alternative and eliminates the problem
of subjectivity or lack of decision makers); sta-
tistical methods (CRITIC CRiteria Importance
Through Intercriteria Correlation: determination
of objective weights of criteria based on the level
of contrast and conflict observed in the structure
of the decision problem; Chi-square test: calcu-
lating whether there is a statistically significant
correlation between the frequencies of the two
attribute characteristics or between the observed
frequencies and the frequencies expected in a
particular hypothesis).
3. The integrated method, which combines the two
previous approaches.
Seven experts (E1 . . . E7 ) assessed the importance of
the criteria. The criteria weights were determined ac-
cording to the algorithm presented in Figure 3.
For that purpose, the modified software MCDSS
WEAR was used (Zavadskas et al., 2012c). Weight co-
efficients (Figure 4) determined when the installation
costs were assessed are presented in Table 7 and those
obtained when these costs were not evaluated are pre-
sented in Table 8. They were determined by using the
AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) approach (Saaty,
1980).
Multicriteria evaluation was performed using the
WASPAS-G method. The ranks assigned in the evalua-
tion of expenditures for the case of LS, for AS, and for
DS are shown in Table 9. Besides this, in Table 9, the
integrated evaluation of alternatives is presented. Cal-
culations made with and without the installation cost
assessment give similar results. For LS, the alternative
A1 , representing shallow foundations deepened to 1.0
m is best suited, whereas the alternative A2 , represent-
ing shallow foundations deepened to 1.5 m is ranked
second.
For the average density sand, the alternative A3 ,
representing 0.3 m diameter bored piles, is the best,
whereas the alternative A1 , representing shallow foun-
dations deepened to 1.0 m, is ranked second. For DS,
the alternative A4 , representing 0.5 m diameter bored
pile foundations is the best, whereas the alternative
A3 , representing 0.3 m diameter bored piles, is ranked
second.
727
4 CONCLUSION
The suggested problem solution model offers higher
prediction accuracy, as well as simpler and clearer pro-
cedures for analyzing building foundation alternatives
and ranking the attributes in terms of their significance
level. The contrast between the results show the ap-
plicability of this model as a valuable tool to be used
by construction work managers, as well as for decision-
making activities and performance evaluation, which
contains multiple alternatives and multiple criteria. Ap-
plying the MCDM is automated selection from several
alternatives. MCDM methods provide a well-structured
procedure (sequence of steps) to select the type of struc-
ture. The algorithm can be easily modified to include
new variables, changing their weights, depending on the
interested persons and the environment in which deci-
sions are made.
The suggested model includes only six ranked vari-
ables (attributes). As a result, practitioners may directly
use the model as a means of fast and convenient analy-
sis of building foundation alternatives by applying sim-
ple and clearly defined procedures. Another important
managerial implication is that the obtained data will
vary, depending on a particular case.
Researchers and stakeholders have found a way to
evaluate and rank the alternatives by applying grey val-
ues and to compare their scores with that of the ideal
alternative.
Weighting results show that stakeholders are more
concerned with the installation cost and reinforcement
than with the consumption of concrete, mechanisms, or
duration of works.
Finally, it should be noted that the WASPAS-G
method has a promising future in the decision mak-
ing because it offers a methodological basis for decision
support.
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