Step stress accelerated reliability growth test method with latent failures

The reliability growth test (RGT) is a popular method to improve system reliability, but it can be time-consuming to implement in practice. So, the accelerated reliability growth test (ARGT) is developed. Since the immature design, the newly designed system is easily exposed to latent failures, which are more and more difficult to find with the increase of improvements. In addition, the constant stress accelerated reliability growth test (CSARGT) requires a long test time, and it’s not suitable in practice. Therefore, a new step stress accelerated reliability growth test (SSARGT) method is proposed to stimulate the occurrence of latent failures and save test time. Firstly, the army materiel systems analysis activity (AMSAA) model is used to track the RGT under step accelerated stresses. Secondly, taking temperature as the accelerated stress, the Arrhenius model is adopted to establish the quantitative relationship between lifetime and stress level in the accelerated life test (ALT), and obtain the acceleration coefficient. Then, combined with the acceleration coefficient, the system reliability on the highest stress level at the end of SSARGT is extrapolated to the use condition. Finally, a case study on the high-voltage power supply system is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.