Designing Adaptive Multiple Dependent State Sampling Plan for Accelerated Life Tests

A novel adaptive multiple dependent state sampling plan(AMDSSP)was designed to inspect products from a continuous manufacturing process under the accelerated life test(ALT)using both double sampling plan(DSP)and multiple dependent state sampling plan(MDSSP)concepts.Under accelerated conditions,the lifetime of a product follows the Weibull distribution with a known shape parameter,while the scale parameter can be determined using the acceleration factor(AF).The Arrhenius model is used to estimate AF when the damaging process is temperature-sensitive.An economic design of the proposed sampling plan was also considered for the ALT.A genetic algorithm with nonlinear optimization was used to estimate optimal plan parameters to minimize the average sample number(ASN)and total cost of inspection(TC)under both producer’s and consumer’s risks.Numerical results are presented to support the AMDSSP for the ALT,while performance comparisons between the AMDSSP,the MDSSP and a single sampling plan(SSP)for the ALT are discussed.Results indicated that the AMDSSP was more flexible and efficient for ASN and TC than the MDSSP and SSP plans under accelerated conditions.The AMDSSP also had a higher operating characteristic(OC)curve than both the existing sampling plans.Two real datasets of electronic devices for the ALT at high temperatures demonstrated the practicality and usefulness of the proposed sampling plan.

Parameter Estimation Based on Censored Data under Partially Accelerated Life Testing for Hybrid Systems due to Unknown Failure Causes

In general,simple subsystems like series or parallel are integrated to produce a complex hybrid system.The reliability of a system is determined by the reliability of its constituent components.It is often extremely difficult or impossible to get specific information about the component that caused the system to fail.Unknown failure causes are instances in which the actual cause of systemfailure is unknown.On the other side,thanks to current advanced technology based on computers,automation,and simulation,products have become incredibly dependable and trustworthy,and as a result,obtaining failure data for testing such exceptionally reliable items have become a very costly and time-consuming procedure.Therefore,because of its capacity to produce rapid and adequate failure data in a short period of time,accelerated life testing(ALT)is the most utilized approach in the field of product reliability and life testing.Based on progressively hybrid censored(PrHC)data froma three-component parallel series hybrid system that failed to owe to unknown causes,this paper investigates a challenging problem of parameter estimation and reliability assessment under a step stress partially accelerated life-test(SSPALT).Failures of components are considered to follow a power linear hazard rate(PLHR),which can be used when the failure rate displays linear,decreasing,increasing or bathtub failure patterns.The Tempered random variable(TRV)model is considered to reflect the effect of the high stress level used to induce early failure data.The maximum likelihood estimation(MLE)approach is used to estimate the parameters of the PLHR distribution and the acceleration factor.A variance covariance matrix(VCM)is then obtained to construct the approximate confidence intervals(ACIs).In addition,studentized bootstrap confidence intervals(ST-B CIs)are also constructed and compared with ACIs in terms of their respective interval lengths(ILs).Moreover,a simulation study is conducted to demonstrate the performance of the estimation procedures and the methodology discussed in this paper.Finally,real failure data from the air conditioning systems of an airplane is used to illustrate further the performance of the suggested estimation technique.

Efficient Method for Accelerated Reliability Qualification Testing

Based on the theoretical inference and experiment verification,a method was proposed to carry out the accelerated reliability qualification testing. First,theoretical inference was used to get the acceleration coefficients of super Gauss vibration stress and temperature stress. Then, by applying these coefficients, an accelerated reliability qualification testing curve was obtained from the standard tests. Finally,the actual experiment on a digital marine control device was carried out under the proposed testing method.The experiment result shows that the proposed method can reduce the total experiment time and improve the efficiency of the reliability qualification test.

Inference for accelerated bivariate dependent competing risks model based on Archimedean copulas under progressive censoring

Dependent competing risks model is a practical model in the analysis of lifetime and failure modes.The dependence can be captured using a statistical tool to explore the re-lationship among failure causes.In this paper,an Archimedean copula is chosen to describe the dependence in a constant-stress accelerated life test.We study the Archimedean copula based dependent competing risks model using parametric and nonparametric methods.The parametric likelihood inference is presented by deriving the general expression of likelihood function based on assumed survival Archimedean copula associated with the model parameter estimation.Combining the nonparametric estimation with progressive censoring and the non-parametric copula estimation,we introduce a nonparametric reliability estimation method given competing risks data.A simulation study and a real data analysis are conducted to show the performance of the estimation methods.

Laboratory and field testing of bolting systems subjected to highly corrosive environments

The capacity of ground support components which have been affected by corrosion is reduced and may ultimately lead to dynamic failure of the component and the strata. In order to maintain an effective,long-term ground support system, significant campaigns of rehabilitation are often required in corrosion affected areas which also expose the workers to hazardous conditions. The most common corrosion protection for steel ground support utilises sacrificial systems such as galvanising. Galvanising has previously been proven to be susceptible to some corrosion processes. Stainless steel is the most effective in resistance to corrosion, but can be cost prohibitive, and its mechanical properties often make it unsuited to use in ground support components. Providing an outer protective plastic coating to bolts has proven to be an effective means of protecting the inner steel bar from corrosion. However, these support systems tend to be susceptible to coating damage, and require post cement grouting to provide full encapsulation. In comparison to a standard bolt/resin system, they can be slow to install and expensive.These systems have also been shown to reduce overall load transfer performance of the bolting system. In order to provide a higher level of corrosion protection whilst maintaining current installation practices and bolting cycle times, Minova has developed the Enduro^(TM)steel ground support range. The Enduro^(TM) range consists of standard Minova steel ground support components which have been treated with a unique coating process. The Enduro^(TM)coating has been tested in the harshest of conditions, in laboratory controlled conditions and in underground trials. It has been proven to effectively resist or completely eliminate the formation of corrosion, even in the most aggressive environments. This paper explains the process and provides the details of the laboratory and underground corrosion performance testing carried out on Enduro^(TM)ground support products.

Design of Accelerated Life Test Plans——Overview and Prospect

Accelerated life test(ALT) is currently the main method of assessing product reliability rapidly, and the design of efficient test plans is a critical step to ensure that ALTs can assess the product reliability accurately, quickly, and economically. With the promotion of the national strategy of civil-military integration, ALT will be widely used in the research and development(R&D) of various types of products, and the ALT plan design theory will face further challenges. To aid engineers in selecting appropriate theories and to stimulate researchers to develop the theories required in engineering, with focus on the demands for theory research that arise from the implementation of ALT, this paper reviews and summarizes the development of ALT plan design theory. The development of the theory and method for planning optimal ALT for location-scale distribution, which is the most applied and mature theory of designing the optimal ALT plan, are described in detail. Taking this as the center of radiation, some problems that ALT now faces, such as the verification of the statistical model, limitation of sample size, solutions of resource limits, optimization of the test arrangement, and management of product complexity, are discussed, and the general ideas and methods of solving these problems are analyzed. Suggestions for selecting appropriate ALT plan design theories are proposed, and the urgent solved theory problems and opinions of their solutions are proposed. Based on the principle of convenience for engineers to select appropriate methods according to the problems found in practice, this paper reviews the development of optimal ALT plan design theory by taking the engineering problems arising from the ALT implementation as the main thread, provides guidelines on selecting appropriate theories for engineers, and proposes opinions about the urgent solved theory problems for researchers.

Strength Degradation of Wood Members Based on the Correlation of Natural and Accelerated Decay Experiments

An accelerated decay test and a natural decay test were conducted synchronically to explore the strength degradation of decaying wood members under long-term exposure to natural environment.A natural decay test was carried out to measure the bending strength,compressive strength parallel to grain and modulus of elasticity of the wood members,with 6 groups of specimens decayed in natural environment for 3 to 18 months respectively.To compare with corresponding decay test,in which 6 other groups of specimens were measured under accelerated conditions.The experimental data collected were evaluated by Pearson productmoment for the correlation.The results indicate that the mechanical properties of the accelerated decay were highly correlated with those in natural environment,both of which decreased in the same trend.Under the given test conditions,the mean value of the accelerated decay test data were curve-fitted to achieve the time-dependent degradation model of the bending strength,the compressive strength parallel to grain,as well as the modulus of elasticity.Due to the high correlation,the acceleration shift factors(ASF)of the two tests were derived,where the bending strength of 2.934,the compressive strength parallel to grain of 2.519 and the elastic modulus of 2.346 were employed to formulate the strength degradation models in the long-term natural environment.The results verify that the exponential function
σ=σ0e^(-βt)enables to exactly capture the degradation of the mechanical properties of wood members decayed in natural environment.

Bayesian Analysis in Partially Accelerated Life Tests for Weighted Lomax Distribution

Accelerated life testing has been widely used in product life testing experiments because it can quickly provide information on the lifetime distributions by testing products or materials at higher than basic conditional levels of stress,such as pressure,temperature,vibration,voltage,or load to induce early failures.In this paper,a step stress partially accelerated life test(SSPALT)is regarded under the progressive type-II censored data with random removals.The removals from the test are considered to have the binomial distribution.The life times of the testing items are assumed to follow lengthbiased weighted Lomax distribution.The maximum likelihood method is used for estimating the model parameters of length-biased weighted Lomax.The asymptotic confidence interval estimates of the model parameters are evaluated using the Fisher information matrix.The Bayesian estimators cannot be obtained in the explicit form,so the Markov chain Monte Carlo method is employed to address this problem,which ensures both obtaining the Bayesian estimates as well as constructing the credible interval of the involved parameters.The precision of the Bayesian estimates and the maximum likelihood estimates are compared by simulations.In addition,to compare the performance of the considered confidence intervals for different parameter values and sample sizes.The Bootstrap confidence intervals give more accurate results than the approximate confidence intervals since the lengths of the former are less than the lengths of latter,for different sample sizes,observed failures,and censoring schemes,in most cases.Also,the percentile Bootstrap confidence intervals give more accurate results than Bootstrap-t since the lengths of the former are less than the lengths of latter for different sample sizes,observed failures,and censoring schemes,in most cases.Further performance comparison is conducted by the experiments with real data.

Constant-Step Stress Accelerated Life Test of VFD under Logarithmic Normal Distribution Case

In order to solve the life problem of vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) within shorter time, and reduce the life prediction cost, a constant-step stress accelerated life test was performed with its cathode temperature increased. Statistical analysis was done by applying logarithmic normal distribution for describing the life, and least square method (LSM) for estimating logarithmic normal parameters. Self-designed special software was used to predict the VFD life. It is verified by numerical results that the VFD life follows logarithmic normal distribution, and that the life-stress relationship satisfies linear Arrhenius equation completely. The accurate calculation of the key parameters enables the rapid estimation of VFD life.

Empirical Approach for Planning and Designing Constant Stress Accelerated Life Tests

Accelerated life testing(ALT)has been widely used to obtain information about the product's life characteristics at normal conditions in a relatively short period of time.Two key issues with ALT are test design and data analysis.The test design of constant stress ALT was studied in this paper.The test design usually combines engineering experiences with optimization models.Such approaches are hard to be implemented by practitioners.A"pure"empirical approach was presented to address this issue.With the proposed approach,some of the decision variables are determined based on the results from the literature,some of the other variables are determined based on engineering analysis and /or judgment,and the remaining variables are determined based on the empirical relations developed in this paper.A real-world example is included to illustrate the appropriateness of the proposed approach.

Multiple Objective Test Design for Accelerated Destructive Degradation Tests

Accelerated destructive degradation tests(ADDTs)are powerful to provide reliability information in the degradation processes with destructive measurements.In order to carry out an ADDT efficiently,both the estimation precision of parameters and the test cost should be considered.On the basis of the given degradation model and failure criterion,a multiple-objective optimization model for the design of ADDTs is proposed.Under constrains of the maximum measurement time,the total sample size and the number of stress levels,a comprehensive target function is suggested to reflect both the precision of lifetime estimation and total cost,and the optimal test plan is obtained,which is composed by optimal choices for samples size,measurement frequency,and the number of measurements at each stress level.A real example is illustrated to demonstrate the implementation of the proposed approach.

Constant-Stress Accelerated Degradation Life Test of an Organic Light-Emitting Diode Display under Violet Light

The lifetime of commercial OLED display devices increases, so does the need for an accelerated lifetime testing method. The present work proposes a simple and accurate blackbox testing approach for commercial PMOLED display lifetime assessment using violet light-induced accelerated aging. Maximum likelihood estimations using lognormal distributions are performed based on datasets acquired from samples exposed to six different degrees of violet irradiance and accelerated life model is shown to accurately fit experimental data using an inverse power law. Based on these results, weighted average of the logarithmic standard deviation, the average life and median life can then be obtained for specific conditions of operation of the devices. As this method relies exclusively on violet light-induced degradation at room-temperature, this minimally-invasive testing procedure requires no significant modification to the display hardware architecture.

Determination method of permafrost table in seasonal frozen soil areas under“Water-Heat-Salt”coupling

The permafrost table is an important index for the design and construction of roads in cold regions,so it is necessary to find a convenient,accurate and fast judgment method to determine the permafrost table.In this study,a three-field coupled model was established based on the hydrothermal salt coupling within the permafrost and the similarity theory,and the changes of the permafrost table under different temperature,moisture and salt conditions were numerically simulated by considering the transient temperature change and the influence of the permafrost layer on the seasonally thawed layer.In addition,an accelerated permafrost table test method was designed based on the time-domain variation and hydrothermal salt coupling by the similarity theory,which rapidly simulated the permafrost table change under different temperatures,moisture,and salts in the natural environment.Comparing the simulation and test results with the measured values in the field,the errors are less than 3%,which verified the feasibility of the method for determining the permafrost table,and the simulated results are better than the test results.Results show that the results of determining the permafrost table with a single index have different degrees of deviation,and the permafrost table obtained by the temperature index is the most accurate in general,and it is more accurate to use the average value of the three indexes as the permafrost table compared with a single index.

Aging effect and test-retest reliability of the sinusoidal harmonic acceleration test and velocity step test using nanotorque rotatory chair

Introduction:Rotatory chair testing has been used to evaluate horizontal canal function.Frequently used tests include sinusoidal harmonic acceleration test(SHAT)and velocity step test(VST).Objectives:Assessment of age effect on the SHAT and VST and assessment of test-retest reliability of the parameters of those two tests.Methods:A prospective study was performed on 100 subjects with no ear or vestibular complaints and normal vestibular evaluation.They were divided into two groups;Group A:below 50 years of age and Group B:50 years of age or above.SHAT was presented at frequencies 0.02,0.04,0.08,0.16,0.32,0.64 Hz with a peak velocity of 60°/s.VST was performed using a maximum velocity of 100°/s with acceleration and deceleration of 200°/s2.Thirty subjects were tested twice to assess reliability.Results:Study participants ranged in age from 20 to 67 years.Regarding group A,the mean age was30.92±7.31 and 55.36±4.61 for group B.No significant differences were found in SHAT parameters between the two groups.As well,there was no significant difference in VST per-rotatory time constant,however,post-rotatory time constant was significantly longer for Group B(P value<0.05).Intraclass correlation coefficient(ICC)values showed moderate to good reliability(ICC 0.5800.818)for SHAT parameters for the lower frequencies and indicated moderate reliability for VST time constant(ICC 0.5090.652).Conclusions:Age has no significant effect on the parameters of SHAT and VST.Test-retest reliability is generally good for both tests.

Effect of nonmetallic inclusions on localized corrosion of spring steel

Certain inclusions in high-strength 60Si2Mn-Cr spring steel result in poor resistance to localized corrosion.In this work,to study the effect of inclusions on the localized corrosion behavior of spring steel,accelerated corrosion tests were performed by immersing spring steel in 3wt%FeCl_(3)solution for different times.The results show that severe corrosion occurred in areas of clustered CaS inclusions.Sulfide inclusions containing Ca and Mg induced the strongest localized corrosion susceptibility.For the case of(Ca,Mn,Mg)S inclusions,the ability to induce localized corrosion susceptibility is ranked as follows:MgS>CaS>MnS.Moreover,CaS,(Ca,Mn)S,and(Ca,Mn,Mg)S inclusions were mainly responsible for inducing environmental embrittlement.

Reliability modeling of the bivariate deteriorating product with both monotonic and non-monotonic degradation paths

Fiber optical gyroscope(FOG)is a highly reliable navigation element,and the degradation trajectories of its two accuracy indexes are monotonic and non-monotonic respectively.In this paper,a flexible accelerated degradation testing(ADT)model is used for analyzing the bivariate dependent degradation process of FOG.The time-varying copulas are employed to consider the dynamic dependency structure between two marginal degradation processes as the Wiener process and the inverse Gaussian process.The statistical inference is implemented by utilizing an inference function for the margins(IFM)approach.It is demonstrated that the proposed method is powerful in modeling the joint distribution with various margins.

Novel Accelerating Life Test Method and Its Application by Combining Constan Stress and Progressive Stress

Constant stress accelerated life tests(ALTs) can be applied to obtain a high estimation accuracy of reliability measure?ments, but these are time?consuming tests. Progressive stress ALTs can yield failures more quickly but cannot guaran tee the estimation accuracy of reliability measurements. In this paper, a progressive?constant combination stress ALT is proposed to combine the merits of both tests. The optimal plan, in which the design variables are the initial pro?gressive stress level, the progressive stress ramp rate, the sample allocation proportion of the progressive stress and the constant stress level, is determined using the principle of minimizing the asymptotic variance of the maximum likelihood estimator of the natural log reliable life for the connectors. A comparison between the optimal PCCSALT plan and the CSALT plan with the same sample size and estimation accuracy shows that the test time is reduced by 13.59% by applying the PCCSALT.

Life test research of a high specific impulse Hall thruster HEP-140MF

In this study,a high specific impulse Hall thruster,HEP-140 MF,having a high discharge voltage,was used to accelerate ions.We aimed to obtain a high specific impulse and an acceleration zone moving downstream toward the channel exit to reduce wall sputtering erosion of the walls of the discharge channel,hence ensuring an enhanced lifetime.To study the lifetime characteristics of the high specific impulse Hall thruster,a life test was performed on the HEP-140 MF thruster for the first time,and performance parameters,such as thrust,specific impulse,and efficiency,were measured.Changes in the performance parameters and evolutions in the surface profiles of the discharge channel wall were summarized.The reasons contributing to these changes during the life test were analyzed.Moreover,the accelerated life test method was validated on the HEP-140 MF.

Graphene/carbon structured catalyst layer to enhance the performance and durability of the high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells

In this study,nitrogen doped electrochemically exfoliated reduced graphene oxide and carbon black supported platinum(Pt/Nr EGO_(2)-CB_(3))has been prepared to enhance the performance and durability of hightemperature PEMFCs with lower Pt loading.On the one hand,Pt/Nr EGO_(2)-CB_(3)with the strong interaction between the Pt and nitrogen(N)prevent agglomeration of Pt particles and Pt particles is 5.46±1.46 nm,which is smaller than that of 6.78±1.34 nm in Pt/C.Meanwhile,ECSA of Pt/Nr EGO_(2)-CB_(3)decrease 13.65%after AST,which is much lower than that of 97.99%in Pt/C.On the other hand,the Nr EGO flakes in MEAac act as a barrier to mitigate phosphoric acid redistribution,which improves the formation of triple-phase boundaries(TPBs)and gives stable operation of the MEAacwith a lower decay rate of 0.02 mV h^(-1)within100 h.After steady-state operation,the maximum power density of Pt/Nr EGO_(2)-CB_(3)(0.411 W cm^(-2))is three times higher than that of conventional Pt/C(0.134 W cm^(-2))in high-temperature PEMFCs.After AST,the mass transfer resistance of Pt/Nr EGO_(2)-CB_(3)electrode(0.560Ωcm^(2))is lower than that in Pt/C(0.728Ωcm^(2)).

Real-Time Electrostatic Monitoring of Wear Debris for Wind Turbine Gearbox

Engineering practice has shown that early faults of gearboxes are a leading maintenance cost driver that can easily lower the profit from a wind turbine operation.A novel oil-lubricated electrostatic monitoring of wear debris for a wind turbine gearbox is presented.The continuous wavelet transform(CWT)is used to eliminate the noises of the original electrostatic signal.The kurtosis and root mean square(RMS)values of the time domain signal are extracted as the characteristic parameters to reflect the deterioration of the gearbox.The overall tendency of electrostatic signals in accelerated life test is analyzed.In the eighth cycle,the abnormal wear in the wind turbine gearbox is detected by electrostatic monitoring.A comparison with the popular MetalScan monitoring is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the electrostatic monitoring method.The results demonstrate that the electrostatic monitoring method can detect the fault accurately.