Analytical Hierarchical Process-based Material Selection for Trailer Body Frame of an Underground Imaging System

Underground imaging technology has been functional in the detection of utilities in the subsurface through land surveying. One way to ensure the quality gathering of data is to identify the best material that can be used for its trailer as it will undergo chaotic movements when used in uneven terrain. Material selection is a vital part of any design process and product development. Thus, this study contributes to the development of an underground imaging system body trailer by using Analytical Hierarchical Process in material selection. AHP technique was employed in structuring multi-criteria decision-making problems by weighting and ranking criteria such as mechanical properties, material quality characteristics, and manufacturing considerations in respect to their corresponding sub-criteria and alternatives. Mild carbon steel, galvanized iron, polypropylene, and cold-rolled steel are the materials assigned as alternatives. Survey form containing the pairwise comparison competing criteria, sub-criteria, and alternatives were given to target respondents as decision makers. Furthermore, the utilized AHP calculator was used for all the computations for consistency analysis. Based on the results, mild carbon steel is the most suitable material to be used as the core material in the fabrication of the underground imaging trailer body. It obtained the highest score in total weight ranking alternatives with a 0.269 weight value surpassing the galvanized iron, cold-rolled steel, and polypropylene with 0.198, 0.180, and 0.104 weight values, respectively.