Reliability Assessment for Small-Sample Accelerated Degradation Testing with Weibull Pseudo-Failure Lifetimes

Abstract

To overcome the prolonged test durations and large sample sizes inherent in conventional accelerated degradation testing (ADT), this paper develops a novel reliability assessment framework based on Weibull pseudo-failure lifetimes. Uniquely, the proposed method enables high-confidence reliability assessment using data from only two accelerated stress levels. First, a mathematical relationship between the use-level reliable life and the Weibull distributional parameters at accelerated levels is established. Subsequently, a joint confidence distribution for these parameters is constructed, facilitating an explicit formula for the exact one-sided lower confidence limit of the reliable life. Monte Carlo simulations and case studies demonstrate that the proposed framework significantly reduces the sample size and duration, while enhancing theoretical rigor and assessment precision compared to traditional multi-level asymptotic methods.