Design of accelerated life testing plans under multiple stresses

Accelerated life testing (ALT) using multiple stresses is commonly used in practice to resemble the operating stresses at normal operating conditions and obtain failure observations in a much shorter time. However, to date, there is little research into the theory of planning ALT for reliability estimation with multiple stresses. ALT with multiple stresses can result in a large number of stress-level combinations which presents a challenge for implementation. In this article, we propose an approach for the design of ALT plans with multiple stresses and formulate multistress test plans based on different objectives and practical constraints. We develop a simulated annealing algorithm to efficiently determine the testing plan parameters. We demonstrate the proposed method with examples based on an actual test conducted using three stress types. The obtained optimal test plans are compared with those based on fractional factorial design. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 60: 468–478, 2013