Investigation of the relationships between abrasiveness and strength properties of weak limestones along a tunnel route [Bir tünel güzergâhi{dotless}ndaki zayi{dotless}f kireçtaşlari{dotless}ni{dotless}n aşi{dotless}nma ve dayani{dotless}m özellikleri arasi{dotless}ndaki i̇lişkilerin araşti{dotless}ri{dotless}lmasi{dotless}]

Cerchar abrasiveness index (cai) plays an important role in determination of rock abrasivity. the main factors affecting the abrasiveness of rocks are amount of hard minerals such as quartz,rock density,degree of cementation and strength characteristics. in this study,rock samples of austin (texas - usa) were tested,weak limestone samples were tested according to cerchar method and relationships between abrasiveness and the strength properties of the soft rocks were investigated. considering abrasion of the rock and steel together,wear on the steel and indentation on the rock that occur at the same time were measured and tried to be correlated. potential usage of cerchar method,which is currently used for estimation of life of excavation tools,was investigated for prediction of strength properties of weak rocks. as a result of the study,cai values of the limestone samples were found less than 1.72,while the majority of the results was found in the range of 0.2 to 1. in this study a good relationship has been found among cai and ucs and ts values,by the statistical analysis of the test results. another good relationship was observed between cai and indentation depth (id). similarly,id has good correlation with the ucs and ts. cai parameter used in the determination of rock abrasivity and cerchar method used to obtain it have been suggested be improved for the soft rocks. it is concluded that,in addition to cai values,by means of indentation depth measurements in cerchar tests,prediction of other rock properties will be possible.