Design of experiments to investigate main effects and all two-factor interactions when one of the factors has more than two levels—application to nuclear waste cementation

When both main effects and first-order interactions are looked for, experimental designs usually require a high number of experiments as soon as one of the investigated factors has more than two levels of variation. A new strategy, based on the use of a series of two-level saturated designs, allowed to reduce the number of trials without compromising the quality of the achieved results. This approach revealed very fruitful in a practical case aiming at selecting a proper binder for nuclear waste encapsulation, and at investigating factors which influence the stability of the resulting solidified waste forms.