Abstract
The cigarette ventilation affects not only the amount of tar and nicotine delivery by a cigarette, but also the composition of the smoke. Therefore, it is important to stabilize of variability in cigarette ventilation that would be affected by changes in cigarette components. This work was conducted to determine the major factors that influence the cigarette ventilation and also to provide fundamental informations for improving the uniformity of cigarette performances. To evaluate the effect of cigarette ventilation as a dependant variable, the three independent factors were the air permeability of plugwrap, tipping paper and the filter pressure drop. We determined the effect of paper permeability on ventilation variability and the optimum condition in combinations of independent factors. The mean of cigarette ventilation was increased as plugwrap permeability increases, particularly at 26,000 CU. However, it was exhibited that standard deviation and coefficient of variation of the cigarette ventilation were decreased with increasing plugwrap permeability. At the 600 CU and 1,200 CU of tipping paper permeability, process capability index (Cp) of the cigarette ventilation increased as plugwrap permeability increases. Following the optimum condition of cigarette ventilation induced by fitted regression equation, one was to optimize 50% ventilation level is by combination with plugwrap permeability of 16,000 CU, tipping paper permeability of 810 CU, filter pressure drop of 319 mm$H_2O$, respectively.
