Overcoming an Inadequate Brake Lining Formulation: A Tutorial Case Study

It's not an enviable (or unique) position to be in - you've got a formulation that's performing poorly. The approach of “tweaking” what you already have is logical. In fact, it's probably the fastest and cheapest approach - and most likely the best. So now the big question becomes, “How far can we push this formulation to make a major improvement?” What you're really asking is a statistical question - “What are the extreme vertices that define the limits of my design space?” Extreme vertices that bound your process are those points that are located as far away as possible from other points in the design space. Knowing what these extreme blend points are is important. And knowing the design space's overall centroid is also key, for this spot is the center of your design space. This paper describes how effectively and economically one can design experiments to design new formulations or improve the existing formulation using mixture design.