A literature review on planning and analysis of multi-stress accelerated life test for reliability assessment

Background: Multi-stress accelerated life test (MALT) has obtained increasing attention in reliability assessment due to its advantages. Started with constant-stress ALT with two stress var-iables, MALT has developed a lot during the past decades. In MALT, the design of the test plan and data analysis are two crucial aspects. Numerous researchers have discussed these two aspects and some important methods of planning and data analysis for MALT are presented. Methods: We first conducted a survey in the journal databases including Elsevier, Springer, IEE-EXplore, Wiley and Taylor & Francis; and patent databases like Spacenet, USPTO and WIPO. Then we revised the literature including patents comprehensively on the planning and analysis of multi-stress ALT. Results: Optimal designs for MALT under different stress loadings are summarized, and different types of statistical inference methods are categorized and introduced. Finally, some challenges and research trends are discussed for future study.