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Methods for planning repeated measures accelerated degradation tests
Author(s) -
Weaver Brian P.,
Meeker William Q.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
applied stochastic models in business and industry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.413
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1526-4025
pISSN - 1524-1904
DOI - 10.1002/asmb.2061
Subject(s) - test plan , equivalence (formal languages) , reliability (semiconductor) , quantile , computer science , reliability engineering , degradation (telecommunications) , statistics , mathematics , engineering , power (physics) , weibull distribution , telecommunications , physics , discrete mathematics , quantum mechanics
Repeated measures accelerated degradation tests can sometimes be used to assess product or component reliability when one would expect few or even no failures during a study. Such tests can be used to estimate the lifetime distributions of highly reliable items. This paper describes methods for selecting a single‐variable accelerated repeated measures degradation test plan when the (possibly transformed) degradation that is linear in (possibly transformed) time and unit‐to‐unit variability is described by a random‐effects model. To find optimum test plans, we use a criterion based on a large‐sample approximation to the estimation precision of a quantile of the failure‐time distribution at use conditions. We also discuss how to find compromise test plans that satisfy practical constraints. We use the general equivalence theorem to verify that a test plan is globally optimum. The resulting optimized plans are also evaluated using simulation and compared with other test plans. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.