System regularities in design of experiments and their applications

This dissertation documents a meta-analysis of 113 data sets from published factorial experiments. The study quantifies regularities observed among main effects and multi-factor interactions. Such regularities are critical to efficient planning and analysis of experiments, and to robust design of engineering systems. Three previously observed properties are analyzed - effect sparsity, hierarchy, and heredity. A new regularity on effect synergism is introduced and shown to be statistically significant. It is shown that a preponderance of active two-factor interaction effects are synergistic, meaning that when main effects are used to increase the system response, the interactions provide an additional increase and that when main effects are used to decrease the response, the interactions generally counteract the main effects. Based on the investigation of system regularities, a new strategy is proposed for evaluating and comparing the effectiveness of robust parameter design methods. A hierarchical probability model is used to capture assumptions about robust design scenarios. A process is presented employing this model to evaluate robust design methods.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Li, Xiang, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Daniel D. Frey.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35303

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35303