BAYESIAN ESTIMATION OF RELIABILITY FROM WEIBULL ACCELERATED LIFE TEST DATA

摘要

In several technological areas, the assessment of very high reliability levels is strongly required. In this context the high reliability level of the components under study prevents one from obtaining failure data in a reasonably short time. To face this problem, in many manufacturing industries, life tests are performed in accelerated conditions. The use of accelerated life tests makes it possible to obtain timely information about reliability. In this paper we propose a new Bayesian estimation method for the reliability and the shape parameter of the Weibull distribution from very few accelerated life tests data. The Bayesian approach enables one to improve the efficiency of the estimation process by reinforcing experimental data with the technological knowledge that engineers possess before performing life tests.