Chapter 6
Response surface designs are useful for modeling a curved quadratic surface to continuous factors. A response surface model can pinpoint a minimum or maximum response, if one exists inside the factor region. Three distinct values for each factor are necessary to fit a quadratic function, so the standard two-level designs cannot fit curved surfaces.
The most popular response surface design is the central composite design, illustrated in the figure to the left below. It combines a two-level fractional factorial and two other kinds of points:
• Center points, for which all the factor values are at the zero ...