## 1 Introduction  
Building stones are a type of construction material that meets acceptable aesthetic and technical criteria. Currently, building stones are widely used in various places of buildings. Some common applications of building stones, such as cladding, flooring, paving, stairs, and curbs, are shown in Figure 1. Depending on the climatic conditions prevailing where the stone is used in a building, environmental deterioration processes can lead to the loss of stone integrity over its service life. In this context, durability against deterioration processes is a vital technical parameter that requires special attention before a stone is selected for use in a building. The durability of stone is a function of various factors, including the inherent characteristics of the stone, the location of the stone's use in the building, and the climatic conditions prevailing in the geographical region [1, 2, 3, 4]. The inherent characteristics (internal factors) are related to the nature of the stone, whereas the location of the stone's use and climatic conditions, known as external factors, play a noticeable role in the occurrence of the type of environmental deterioration process. Among the inherent characteristics of a stone, its strength is a critical parameter when it is subjected to stresses induced by deterioration processes such as freezing-thawing, salt crystallization, heating-cooling, or wetting-drying [5; 6; 7]. When the stresses caused by deterioration processes exceed the tensile strength of the stone, new pore spaces are created, and the existing pores develop. Repeated cycles of the deterioration processes may eventually cause the stone to degrade, resulting in a loss of durability in the long term [8; 9]. Considering the tensile nature of stresses resulting from deterioration processes, the tensile strength of a stone will play a decisive role in its durability against the harmful effects of these processes. Therefore, evaluating the tensile strength of various stones can greatly help in choosing the most suitable materials in terms of durability for use in buildings. According to Table 1, previous studies have used the Brazilian tensile strength (BTS) as a criterion for evaluating the durability of stone exposed to environmental deterioration processes. [PERSON] et al. [5] evaluated the decay function model (DFM) proposed by [PERSON] et al. [10] for integrity loss of ignimbrite subjected to the freezing-thawing process. The results showed a descending trend in BTS of ignimbrite with increasing cycles of freezing-thawing test. [PERSON] et al. [11] experimentally evaluated the variations of BTS of tuff building stones during cycles of freezing-thawing process. The results revealed the harmful effects of freezing-thawing on the BTS of the samples. The BTS of the samples  
Figure 1: Some uses of building stones in the building: (**a**) cladding, (**b**) flooring, (**c**) paving, (**d**) stairs, and (**e**) curb. decreased with an increase in the cycle number of freezing-thawing tests. The BTS of igneous building stones during various cycles of freezing-thawing tests was investigated by [PERSON] et al. [12]. Findings indicated that the BTS of the samples was adversely affected by the freezing-thawing action. [PERSON] et al. [13] simulated freezing-thawing under laboratory conditions to study the BTS deterioration of three different types of gramitic stones including monzogranite, tonalite, and granodiorite. They concluded that BTS decreased linearly with the number of freezing-thawing cycles. The effect of heating-cooling action on the BTS of granites with different textures was studied by [PERSON] et al. [14]. The results of the data analysis showed a significant decrease in the BTS of the samples after heating-cooling. [PERSON] et al. [15] investigated the deterioration effects of freezing-thawing on the durability of granite using changes in its BTS values during freezing-thawing cycles.