Small asymmetric fractional factorial plans for main effects and specified two-factor interactions

Abstract

Fractional factorial plans represented by orthogonal arrays of strength two are known to be optimal in a very strong sense under a model that includes the mean and all the main effects, when all interactions are assumed to be absent. When a fractional factorial plan given by an orthogonal array of strength two is not saturated, one might think of entertaining some two-factor interactions also in the model. In such a situation, it is of interest to examine which of the two-factor interactions can be estimated via a plan represented by an orthogonal array, as also to study the overall efficiency of the plan when some interactions are in the model alongwith the mean and all main effects. In this paper, an attempt has been made to examine these issues by considering some practically useful plans for asymmetric (mixed level) factorials with small number of runs.