Optimal designs of constant‐stress accelerated life‐tests for one‐shot devices with model misspecification analysis

The design of constant-stress accelerated life-test (CSALT) is important in reliability estimation. In reliability studies, practitioners usually rely on underlying distribution to design CSALTs. However, model misspecification analysis of optimal designs has not been examined extensively. This paper considers one-shot device testing data by assuming gamma, Weibull, lognormal and Birnbaum–Saunders (BS) lifetime distributions, which are popular lifetime distributions in reliability studies. We then investigate the effect of model misspecification between these lifetime distributions in the design of optimal CSALTs, in which the asymptotic variance of the estimate of reliability of the device at a specific mission time is minimized subject to a prefixed budget and a termination time of the life-test. The inspection frequency, number of inspections at each stress level, and allocation of the test devices are determined in optimal design for one-shot device testing. Finally, a numerical example involving a grease-based magnetorheological fluids (G-MRF) data set is used to illustrate the developed methods. Results suggest the assumption of lifetime distribution as Weibull or lognormal to be more robust to model misspecification, while the assumption of gamma lifetime distribution seems to be the most non-robust (or most sensitive) one

Optimal Experimental Planning of Reliability Experiments Based on Coherent Systems

In industrial engineering and manufacturing, assessing the reliability of a product or system is an important topic. Life-testing and reliability experiments are commonly used reliability assessment methods to gain sound knowledge about product or system lifetime distributions. Usually, a sample of items of interest is subjected to stresses and environmental conditions that characterize the normal operating conditions. During the life-test, successive times to failure are recorded and lifetime data are collected. Life-testing is useful in many industrial environments, including the automobile, materials, telecommunications, and electronics industries. There are different kinds of life-testing experiments that can be applied for different purposes. For instance, accelerated life tests (ALTs) and censored life tests are commonly used to acquire information in reliability and life-testing experiments with the presence of time and resource limitations. Statistical inference based on the data obtained from a life test and effectively planning a life-testing experiment subject to some constraints are two important problems statisticians are interested in. The experimental design problem for a life test has long been studied; however, the experimental planning considering putting the experimental units into systems for a life-test has not been studied. In this thesis, we study the optimal experimental planning problem in multiple stress levels life-testing experiments and progressively Type-II censored life-testing experiments when the test units can be put into coherent systems for the experiment. Based on the notion of system signature, a tool in structure reliability to represent the structure of a coherent system, under different experimental settings, models and assumptions, we derive the maximum likelihood estimators of the model parameters and the expected Fisher information matrix. Then, we use the expected Fisher information matrix to obtain the asymptotic variance-covariance matrix of the maximum likelihood estimators when $n$-component coherent systems are used in the life-testing experiment. Based on different optimality criteria, such as $D$-optimality, $A$-optimality and $V$-optimality, we obtain the optimal experimental plans under different settings. Numerical and Monte Carlo simulation studies are used to demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of using systems in life-testing experiments

Robust estimation based on one-shot device test data under log-normal lifetimes

In this paper we present robust estimators for one-shot device test data under lognormal lifetimes. Based on these estimators, confidence intervals and Wald-type tests are also developed. Their robustness feature is illustrated through a simulation study and two numerical examples

Inferencia estadística robusta basada en divergencias para dispositivos de un sólo uso

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Matemáticas, leída el 30-06-2021A one-shot device is a unit that performs its function only once and, after use, the device either gets destroyed or must be rebuilt. For this kind of device, one can only know whether the failure time is either before or after a speci c inspection time, and consequently the lifetimes are either left- or right-censored, with the lifetime being less than the inspection time if the test outcome is a failure (resulting in left censoring) and the lifetime being more than the inspection time if the test outcome is a success (resulting in right censoring). An accelerated life test (ALT) plan is usually employed to evaluate the reliability of such products by increasing the levels of stress factors and then extrapolating the life characteristics from high stress conditions to normal operating conditions. This acceleration process will shorten the life span of devices and reduce the costs associated with the experiment. The study of one-shot device from ALT data has been developed considerably recently, mainly motivated by the work of Fan et al. [2009]...Los dispositivos de un solo uso (one shot devices en ingles), son aquellos que, una vez usados, dejan de funcionar. La mayor dificultad a la hora de modelizar su tiempo de vida es que solo se puede saber si el momento de fallo se produce antes o despues de un momento específico de inspeccion. As pues, se trata de un caso extremo de censura intervalica: si el tiempo de vida es inferior al de inspeccion observaremos un fallo (censura por la izquierda), mientras que si el tiempo de vida es mayor que el tiempo de inspeccion, observaremos un exito (censura por la derecha). Para la observacion y modelizacion de este tipo de dispositivos es comun el uso de tests de vida acelerados. Los tests de vida acelerados permiten evaluar la fiabilidad de los productos en menos tiempo, incrementando las condiciones a las que se ven sometidos los dispositivos para extrapolar despues estos resultados a condiciones mas normales. El estudio de los dispositivos de un solo uso por medio de tests de vida acelerados se ha incrementado considerablemente en los ultimos a~nos motivado, principalmente, por el trabajo de Fan et al. [2009]...Fac. de Ciencias MatemáticasTRUEunpu

Simulation-based Bayesian optimal ALT designs for model discrimination

Accelerated life test (ALT) planning in Bayesian framework is studied in this paper with a focus of differentiating competing acceleration models, when there is uncertainty as to whether the relationship between log mean life and the stress variable is linear or exhibits some curvature. The proposed criterion is based on the Hellinger distance measure between predictive distributions. The optimal stress-factor setup and unit allocation are determined at three stress levels subject to test-lab equipment and test-duration constraints. Optimal designs are validated by their recovery rates, where the true, data-generating, model is selected under the DIC (Deviance Information Criterion) model selection rule, and by comparing their performance with other test plans. Results show that the proposed optimal design method has the advantage of substantially increasing a test plan׳s ability to distinguish among competing ALT models, thus providing better guidance as to which model is appropriate for the follow-on testing phase in the experiment.NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in RELIABILITY ENGINEERING & SYSTEM SAFETY. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in RELIABILITY ENGINEERING & SYSTEM SAFETY, 134, 1-9. DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2014.10.00