OPTIMAL-DESIGN OF ACCELERATED LIFE TESTS FOR THE WEIBULL DISTRIBUTION UNDER PERIODIC INSPECTION AND TYPE-I CENSORING

For the case where the lifetime at a stress level follow Weibull distribution, optimal accelerated life test plans are developed under the assumptions of periodic inspection and type I censoring. The inspection times and low stress level are determined such that the asymptotic variance of the maximum likelihood estimator of the estimated mean or p(th) quantile at the use condition is minimized. Sensitivity analysis is also carried out to see how sensitive the asymptotic variance of the estimated mean is with respect to errors involved in the guessed failure probabilities at the normal and high stress levels.