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Two Level Factorial Experiments

Two level factorial experiments are factorial experiments in which each factor is
investigated at only two levels. The early stages of experimentation usually involve the
investigation of a large number of potential factors to discover the "vital few" factors.
Two level factorial experiments are used during these stages to quickly filter out
unwanted effects so that attention can then be focused on the important ones.

This section is divided into the following subsections:

• Two to the k Designs

• The Two Squared Design
• The Two Cubed Design

2k Designs
The factorial experiments, where all combination of the levels of the factors are run, are
usually referred to as full factorial experiments. Full factorial two level experiments are
also referred to as 2 designs where denotes the number of factors being investigated in
the experiment. (In DOE++, these designs are referred to as 2 Level Full Factorial
Designs as shown in Figure 7.1.) A full factorial two level design with factors requires
runs for a single replicate. For example, a two level experiment with three factors will
require runs. The choice of the two levels of factors used in two level
experiments depends on the factor - some factors naturally have two levels. For example,
if gender is a factor, then male and female are the two levels. For other factors, the limits
of the range of interest are usually used. For example, if temperature is a factor that varies
from 45 to 90 then the two levels used in the 2 design for this factor would be
45 and 90 . The two levels of the factor in the 2 design are usually represented as
(for the first level) and (for the second level). Note that this representation is reversed
from the coding used in Chapter 6 for the indicator variables that represent two level
factors in ANOVA models. For ANOVA models, the first level of the factor was
represented using a value of for the indicator variable, while the second level was
represented using a value of . For details on the notation used for two level
experiments refer to Chapter 7, Notation.
 Figure 7.1: Selection of full factorial experiments with two levels in DOE++.

The 22 Design

The simplest of the two level factorial experiments is the 2 design where two factors
(say factor and factor ) are investigated at two levels. A single replicate of this design
will require four runs ( ) The effects investigated by this design are the
two main effects, and and the interaction effect . The treatments for this design
are shown in Figure 7.2 (a). In the figure, letters are used to represent the treatments. The
presence of a letter indicates the high level of the corresponding factor and the absence
indicates the low level. For example, (1) represents the treatment combination where all
factors involved are at the low level or the level represented by ; represents the
treatment combination where factor is at the high level or the level of , while the
remaining factors (in this case, factor ) are at the low level or the level of . Similarly,
represents the treatment combination where factor is at the high level or the level of ,
while factor is at the low level and represents the treatment combination where
factors and are at the high level or the level of . Figure 7.2 (b) shows the design
matrix for the 2 design. It can be noted that the sum of the terms resulting from the
product of any two columns of the design matrix is zero. As a result the 2 design is an
orthogonal design. In fact all 2 designs are orthogonal designs. [Note] This property of
the 2 designs offers a great advantage in the analysis because of the simplifications that
result from orthogonality. These simplifications are explained later on in this chapter.

The 2 design can also be represented geometrically using a square with the four
treatment combinations lying at the four corners, as shown in Figure 7.2 (c).
 Figure 7.2: The 2 design - Figure (a) displays the experiment design, (b)
displays the design matrix and (c) displays the geometric representation for
the design. In Figure (b), the column names , , and are used. Column
represents the intercept term. Columns and represent the respective
factor settings. Column represents the interaction and is the product of
columns and .

The 23 Design

The 2 design is a two level factorial experiment design with three factors (say factors ,
and ). This design tests three ( ) main effects, , and ; three ( )
two factor interaction effects, , , ; and one ( ) three factor
interaction effect, . The design requires eight runs per replicate. The eight treatment
combinations corresponding to these runs are , , , , , , and . Note that
the treatment combinations are written in such an order that factors are introduced one by
one with each new factor being combined with the preceding terms. This order of writing
the treatments is called the standard order or Yates' order. The 2 design is shown in
Figure 7.3 (a). The design matrix for the 2 design is shown in Figure 7.3 (b). The design
matrix can be constructed by following the standard order for the treatment combinations
to obtain the columns for the main effects and then multiplying the main effects columns
to obtain the interaction columns.
 Figure 7.3: The 2 design - Figure (a) shows the experiment design and (b)
shows the design matrix.

The 2 design can also be represented geometrically using a cube with the eight
treatment combinations lying at the eight corners as shown in Figure 7.4.
 Figure 7.4: Geometric representation of the 2 design.

See Also:

Use of Regression to Calculate Sum of Squares

Analysis of 2k Designs
Analysis of Experiments
Notation

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Use of Regression to Calculate Sum of

Squares
This section explains the reason behind the use of regression in DOE++ in all
calculations related to the sum of squares. A number of textbooks present the method of
direct summation to calculate the sum of squares. But this method is only applicable for
balanced designs and may give incorrect results for unbalanced designs. For example, the
sum of squares for factor in a balanced factorial experiment with two factors, and ,

is given as follows:

where represents the levels of factor , represents the levels of factor , and
represents the number of samples for each combination of and . The term is the
mean value for the th level of factor , is the sum of all observations at the th level
of factor and is the sum of all observations.

The analogous term to calculate in the case of an unbalanced design is given as:

where is the number of observations at the th level of factor and is the total
number of observations. Similarly, to calculate the sum of squares for factor and

interaction , the formulas are given as:

Applying these relations to the unbalanced data of Table 6.6, the sum of squares for the

interaction is:
 Table 6.6: Example of an unbalanced design.

which is obviously incorrect since the sum of squares cannot be negative. For a detailed
discussion on this refer to [23].

The correct sum of squares can be calculated as shown next. The and matrices for the

design of Table 6.6 can be written as:

Then the sum of squares for the interaction can be calculated as:

where is the hat matrix and is the matrix of ones. The matrix can be calculated
using where is the design matrix, , excluding the
last column that represents the interaction effect . Thus, the sum of squares for the

interaction is:

This is the value that is calculated by DOE++ (see Figure 6.15 for the experiment design
and Figure 6.16 for the analysis).
 Figure 6.15: Unbalanced experimental design for the data in Table 6.6.

Figure 6.16: Analysis for the unbalanced data in Table 6.6.

See Also:

Blocking

Two Level Factorial Experiments

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