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

Abstract Constant stress accelerated life tests (ALTs) can be applied to obtain a high estimation accuracy of reliability measurements, but these are time-consuming tests. Progressive stress ALTs can yield failures more quickly but cannot guarantee 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 progressive 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.