Reliability characteristics of new devices are usually demonstrated by life testing. When lifetime data are sparse, as is often the case with highly reliable devices, expensive devices, and devices for which accelerated life testing is not feasible, reliability models that are based on a combination of degradation and lifetime data represent an important practical approach. This thesis presents reliability models based on the combination of degradation and lifetime data or degradation data alone, with and without the presence of covariates. Statistical inference methods associated with the models are also developed. / The degradation process is assumed to follow a Wiener process. Failure is defined as the first passage of this process to a fixed barrier. The degradation data of a surviving item are described by a truncated Wiener process and lifetimes follow an inverse Gaussian distribution. Models are developed for three types of data structures that are often encountered in reliability studies, terminal point data (a combination of degradation and lifetime data) and mixed data (an extended case of terminal point data); conditional degradation data; and covariate data. / Maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs) are derived for the parameters of each model. Inferences about the parameters are based on asymptotic properties of the MLEs and on the likelihood ratio method. An analysis of deviance is presented and approximate pivotal quantities are derived for the drift and variance parameters. Predictive density functions for the lifetime and the future degradation level of either a surviving item or a new item are obtained using empirical Bayes methods. Case examples are given to illustrate the applications of the models.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.39952 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Lu, Jin, 1959- |
| Contributors | Whitmore, G. Alex (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Faculty of Management.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001485129, proquestno: NN12422, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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