Relations of the main characteristics of cutting (capacity, energy consumption and diamond tool wear) and the wire saw mode are presented for various heights of a cutting bench. The authors develop the wire saw control mode selection procedure accounting for the said relations of the cutting performance, cutting cost and the bench height. For the selection of the rational mode of the wire saw control, the integrated technical-and-economic index is offered, characterized by the cost related with the stone cutting intensity. [1][2][3][4][5][6]. This is connected with their ability to cut large blocks (over 500 m 3 ) to conform with higher yield of large marketable stone blocks in jointy rock masses. The use of diamond wire saws allows cutting high strength natural stone (of the type of granite). Development and application of diamond wire saws instead of abrasive wire saws, where quartz sand with water was used as an abrasive slurry, enhanced cutting capacity ten times and higher in medium strength rocks and expanded the range of the stone strength to the level of granites, dolerites, etc.Cutting of large size stones supposes high-bench technology when all linear parameters of a stone block sample depend on the maximum yield of marketable blocks governed by natural jointing of rocks [2,5,6]. Irrespective of stone strength, the two-stage marketable block extraction has been theoretically and experimentally validated. At the first, most laborious stage, a block sample of assigned size is separated from a rock mass using wire saws (WS). At the second stage, the block sample is cut into marketable blocks using different methods and means depending on the stone strength. For rocks of the type of marble, bar stone cutters or WS for quartzous rocks are used. For rocks of the type of granite, blasthole method and wedges (mechanical, hydraulic) or inexplosive destructive mixtures are used.The technical and economical performance of cutting a block sample from rocks is governed by the linear parameters of the block (H, L, B), WS work mode and stone strength [7][8][9]. The economical evaluation of WS operation takes into account the cutting productivity, specific power consumption and diamond tool wear. The specific operational costs (RUB/m 2 ) to cut a block sample from a rock mass using WS are given by:where o C , p С , t C are, respectively, the costs of WS operation (Rub/h), power (RUB/kW·h)) anddiamond tool (RUB/carat); 75 . 0 tu = К is the estimated coefficient of WS use in time; П is the WS
