Integration method for reliability assessment with multi-source incomplete accelerated degradation testing data

During the product life cycle, the lifetime information will be collected at each stage, mainly from different tests at the R&D phase, field usage, and maintenance. To comprehensively conduct reliability assessments, it generally requires the integration of multi-source datasets, even that from similar products. In this article, we considered the scenario that products have been arranged with several accelerated degradation tests (ADT) under different types of accelerated stresses with dependency. The obtained data is called incomplete ADT dataset with incomplete stress conditions which fails the traditional integration method for reliability assessments. A novel method is proposed to accomplish this task through mutually exclusive set (MES) theory. The probability assignments for each dataset are given through the union set of several MESs. Then, the multi-source ADT datasets are integrated with the assigned weights of probabilities. Finally, a simulation study and a real application are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.