Optimization of Fire Retardants in a Formulations of Intumescent Fire Retardant Coatings for Steel Structure via a D-optimal Mixture Design Based on Response Surface Methodology

Abstract

Response surface methodology (RSM) is a very efficient tool to provide a good practical insight into developing new process and optimizing them. This methodology could help engineers to raise a mathematical model to represent the behavior of system as a convincing function of process parameters. Many experiments in research and development in the paint preparation involve mixture components. These are experiments with mixtures in which the experimental factors are the components of a mixture and the response variable depends on the relative proportion of each components, but not on the absolute amount of the mixture. Thus the mixture components cannot be varied independently. Optimizing the formulations for a preparation of intumescent fire-resistant coating requires the fire resistant effectiveness of several fire retardants combinations to be determined. We discuss the design and analysis of these types of experiments, presents a D-optimal design methodology for computer aided experimental design for fire retardant coating formulations involve mixture components, exemplifies the benefits of using design of experiments(DOE) together with statistical software package to facilitate the formulating of recipe for structural steelworks. Goal of this paper is to encourage greater utilization of information technology in paint preparation research and development.