A study on life evaluation & prediction of railway vehicle contactor based on accelerated life test data

In this recent tendency, an accelerated life test (ALT) is used to evaluate stability and reliability of machinery parts and systems for short periods. As ALT is performed by applying high stress compared to normal use conditions in a short time, we can rapidly evaluate the life of the machinery and obtain reliability values. In this paper, we conduct the accelerated life test for a railway vehicle contactor, constructing the real-time monitoring system. Based on ALT data, we can determine the contactor's failure mode and mechanism, and estimate reliability values. Consequently, we will examine the method of evaluating the life of railway vehicle contactors through an estimation of the interesting value - relationship between life and stress, mean time to failure (MTTF), percentile B-100P life etc. in normal use conditions.