ABSTRACT
Accelerated life testing of products, components and materials is to get information quickly on specific lives, life distributions, failure rates, mean lives, and reliabilities. Accelerated testing is achieved by subjecting the test units to application and operation stress levels that are more severe than the stress levels applied during normal use in order to shorten their lives or their times to failure. If the results can be extrapolated to the stress levels encountered during normal use, they yield estimates of the lives and reliabilities under use stresses. Such tests provide savings in time and expense, since for many products, components, and materials, life under use conditions is so long that testing under those conditions is not timely or economically feasible.
