On the Design of Experiments Methodology for the Optimal Design of a New Machinery

The object of this study concerns the validation of the DOE (Design Of Experiments) methodology applied to the optimal design of new machines. In particular, this technique was tested on an aging test machine for a new class of intelligent railroad seats. The authors intend to implement this technique using the proprietary software Minitab. Instead, Matlab computational software was chosen to emulate the machine in a virtual environment to test the various configurations considered for statistical analysis. Following the numerical analysis, this method was tested on the physical prototype recently built in the Applied Mechanics Laboratory of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Salerno. The use of DOE on the real machine revealed a lack of correlation between the main measured quantities, thus highlighting the incorrect distribution of the assumed transducers. This information allowed to redefine the sensors to be installed, improving the performance of the instrumented seat.