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Reliability analysis of degradation with a new independent increment process

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Abstract

Degradation test is an important method to assess the reliability of complex systems and highly reliable products. The effectiveness of a degradation model depends strongly on the suitability of the model to describe the process. This paper proposes a new degradation model in which the characteristics of the widely used stochastic process and degradation path models are considered simultaneously. According to the proposed model, closed-form expressions of the performance distribution, failure time distribution and their percentiles, as well as reliability, can be obtained easily. A one-stage procedure is then developed to estimate the model parameters, based on which, estimations of the performance distribution, failure time distribution, and reliability are also presented in the paper. Finally, simulation studies are conducted to validate the proposed method. Results suggest that the method provides precise estimates even for zero-failure cases or an extremely small sample size of approximately five.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing, 100094, China

    Qiong Wu, Jianzhong Yang & Jingyan Wang

  2. Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications Technology, Beijing, 100094, China

    Li Xue

Authors
  1. Qiong Wu
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  2. Jianzhong Yang
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  3. Jingyan Wang
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  4. Li Xue
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qiong Wu.

Additional information

Qiong Wu is an engineer at the Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering, China Academy of Space Technology. He received his Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics in 2011 from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, PRC. His research interests include quality and reliability engineering.

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Wu, Q., Yang, J., Wang, J. et al. Reliability analysis of degradation with a new independent increment process. J MECH SCI TECHNOL 28, 3971–3976 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-014-0908-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-014-0908-6

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