Reliability assessment method of multi-state system based on accelerated degradation testing

To assess the reliability of a high-reliability and complicated system, a reliability assessment method of multi-state system (MSS) based on an accelerated degradation testing (ADT) is proposed. Firstly, the degradation data for ADT is transferred to the data for normal stress test through the acceleration model. According to the transferred data, degradation track and distribution parameters of system performance index are acquired. Secondly, the states of components are defined according to the performance levels of components, and the corresponding states probabilities of components are calculated. Thirdly, the universal generating function of system is expressed and the reliability assessment result of the multi-state system is calculated according to the universal generating function. Finally, a numerical example illustrates the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method is efficient.