A GENERALIZED EQUIVALENT TEMPERATURE MODEL IN A TIME-VARYING ENVIRONMENT

Accelerated degradation test at high temperature level is a common method to accelerate the degradation of products by elevating temperature, and the obtained degradation data are then used to obtain the estimate of the performance at normal temperature after extrapolating the degradation through accelerating model. However, the normal temperature is ever-changing rather than constant. Therefore, a generalized equivalent temperature model based on power law degradation path is proposed to establish a connection between accelerated degradation data and degradation data at normal temperature. The model takes the equal degradation measure as a principle and the conclusion is demonstrated that the increments of the degradation under the same magnitude, same time and different orders of temperature stresses are same. The result shows that the empirical equivalent temperature model is a special case of the proposed model. The accuracy of the proposed model is finally demonstrated by a case study of nitrile rubber O-rings.