No-confounding designs with 20 runs—Alternatives to resolution IV screening designs

When experimental resources are significantly constrained, resolution V fractional factorial designs are often prohibitively large for experiments with 6 or more factors. Resolution IV designs may also be cost prohibitive, as additional experimentation may be required to de-alias active 2-factor interactions (2FI). This paper introduces 20-run no-confounding screening designs for 6 to 12 factors as alternatives to resolution IV designs. No-confounding designs have orthogonal main effects, and since no 2FI is completely confounded with another main effects or 2FI, the experimental results can be analyzed without follow-on experimentation. The paper concludes with the results of a Monte Carlo simulation used to assess the model-fitting accuracy of the recommended designs.