Abstract

Accelerated Destructive Degradation Tests (ADDTs) are effective for reliability assessment of highly reliable products whose key performance characteristic has to be destructively measured. Test units in a reliability experiment typically share the same test environments, and this introduces block effects to the resulting ADDT data. Nevertheless, the block effects are seldom considered in the optimal design of an ADDT plan. Motivated by an application of a seal strength test, this study discusses methods for planning ADDT with block effects. In particular, two types of block effects are considered, i.e., the rig-layer blocking due to a shared test rig, and the gauge-layer blocking resulting from simultaneous measurements. The ADDT planning specifies the optimal stress levels and allocation of test units to these stress levels to minimize the asymptotic variance of the estimated lifetime quantiles at use conditions. The optimal test plans are investigated analytically and through a comprehensive numerical study. An application to the motivating example reveals the importance of considering the block effects in the test design.

摘要

加速破坏性退化测试 (ADDT) 对于必须破坏性测量其关键性能特征的高度可靠产品的可靠性评估非常有效。可靠性实验中的测试单元通常共享相同的测试环境，这会给生成的 ADDT 数据带来块效应。然而，在 ADDT 计划的优化设计中很少考虑块效应。受应用密封强度测试的启发，本研究讨论了规划具有块效应的 ADDT 的方法。特别地，考虑了两种类型的块效应，即由于共享测试台而导致的钻机层阻塞，以及由同时测量导致的仪表层阻塞。ADDT 规划指定了最佳应力水平和测试单元对这些应力水平的分配，以最大限度地减少使用条件下估计寿命分位数的渐近方差。通过分析和综合数值研究来研究最佳测试计划。对激励示例的应用揭示了在测试设计中考虑块效应的重要性。