Standard Guide for Statistical Analysis of Accelerated Service Life Data

Importancia y uso:

4.1 The nature of accelerated service life estimation normally requires that stresses higher than those experienced during service conditions are applied to the material being evaluated. For non-constant use stress, such as experienced by time varying weather outdoors, it may in fact be useful to choose an accelerated stress fixed at a level slightly lower than (say 90 % of) the maximum experienced outdoors. By controlling all variables other than the one used for accelerating degradation, one may model the expected effect of that variable at normal, or usage conditions. If laboratory accelerated test devices are used, it is essential to provide precise control of the variables used in order to obtain useful information for service life prediction. It is assumed that the same failure mechanism operating at the higher stress is also the life determining mechanism at the usage stress. It must be noted that the validity of this assumption is crucial to the validity of the final estimate.

4.2 Accelerated service life test data often show different distribution shapes than many other types of data. This is due to the effects of measurement error (typically normally distributed), combined with those unique effects which skew service life data towards early failure time (infant mortality failures) or late failure times (aging or wear-out failures). Applications of the principles in this guide can be helpful in allowing investigators to interpret such data.

4.3 The choice and use of a particular acceleration model and life distribution model should be based primarily on how well it fits the data and whether it leads to reasonable projections when extrapolating beyond the range of data. Further justification for selecting models should be based on theoretical considerations.

Note 2: Accelerated service life or reliability data analysis packages are becoming more readily available in common computer software packages. This makes data reduction and analyses more directly accessible to a growing number of investigators. This is not necessarily a good thing as the ability to perform the mathematical calculation, without the fundamental understanding of the mechanics may produce some serious errors.3

Subcomité:

G03.08

Referida por:

G0141-09R21

Volúmen:

14.04

Número ICS:

03.120.30 (Application of statistical methods)