FACTORS IDENTIFICATION FOR COAL BRIQUETTES MANUFACTURING USING STATISTICAL EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN APPROACH

Coal briquettes are mostly manufactured through conventional methods in developing countries including Pakistan. Shortages of energy resources across the globe have pushed companies to manufacture those products with least possible costs by using significant factors. Indeed, the role of statistical design of experiment in general and factorial design in particular is vital in identifying these significant factors in comparison to the conventional techniques. This paper provides a statistical approach towards manufacturing of coal briquettes in Northern Province of Pakistan. Binder composition, pressure, particle size, and coal type are analyzed for higher calorific value and compressive strength simultaneously. Experiments are conducted in order to obtain the response of desired variables for the given three levels of each factor. Full factorial design approach with analysis of variance (ANOVA) is deployed to get the optimum values of the response variables under the given conditions.