Level: Intermediate
Sonja Kuhnt, Professor, Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts
Calcium silicate units ensure good acoustic and thermal insulation as well as fire resistance when used for building houses. In the production process a mixture of sand, lime and water is high-pressed first and then autoclaved. The understanding of how raw materials and process variables interact in achieving the compressive strength of the final product enables a cost and energy efficient layout of the production process. Its production process involves several factors that concern either the mixture of the raw materials or the curing process. An experimental design has to take into account mixture components with additional constraints as well as process parameters. With the aid of JMP, we were able to generate D-optimal designs with different numbers of center points and to compare them by various efficiencies as well as their prediction variance throughout the design space. From the experimental results, we derived a response surface model for the mean compressive strength by statistical model selection strategies from JMP combined with expert-knowledge.
The research was supported by a grant (IGF-Vorhaben Nr. 18570-N) from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) according to a resolution of the German Bundestag.
