Dakota Reference Manual: oas

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oas

Orthogonal Array Sampling

## Specification

Alias: none

Argument(s): none

## Description

Orthogonal array sampling (OAS) is a widely used technique for running experiments and systematically testing factor effects. An orthogonal array sample can be described as a 4-tuple , where m is the number of sample points, n is the number of input variables, s is the number of symbols, and r is the strength of the orthogonal array. The number of sample points, m, must be a multiple of the number of symbols, s. The number of symbols refers to the number of levels per input variable. The strength refers to the number of columns where we are guaranteed to see all the possibilities an equal number of times. Note that the DACE OAS capability produces a randomized orthogonal array: the samples for a particular level are randomized within that level.

If one examines the sample sets in an orthogonal array by looking at the rows as individual samples and columns as the variables sampled, one sees that the columns are orthogonal to each other in an orthogonal array. This feature is important in main effects analysis, which is a sensitivity analysis technique that identifies which variables have the most influence on the output.