ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some results where the distribution assumed is the exponential distribution. It considers the case when there is a single cause of failure and problems where multiple causes of failure are present. The problem of competing risks, that is, problems where competing mechanisms of failure are present, occurs quite naturally. The chapter describes some acceleration models, where a single cause of failure is present. It discusses a corresponding estimation problem, and the problem of competing mechanisms of failure. The chapter examines bivariate accelerated testing. Most of the works on accelerated life tests assume that a product has only a single mode of failure. However, there are many problems where there are several causes of failure for the same component. The problem is to estimate the parameters of the failure distribution of each component at normal use conditions from data collected in an accelerated life test.
