ABSTRACT
The sequential life testing approach is an attractive alternative to that of predetermined, fixed sample size hypothesis testing because of the fewer observations required for its use, especially when the underlying sampling distribution is the three-parameter Inverse Weibull model. It happens that even with the use of a sequential life testing mechanism, sometimes the number of items necessary to reach a decision about accepting or rejecting a null hypothesis is quite large (De Souza 2000, De Souza 2001). Then, for a threeparameter underlying Inverse Weibull Distribution, a truncation mechanism for this life-testing situation was developed by De Souza (2005) and an application of this mechanism was presented by De Souza & Haddad (2007). But it happens that sometimes the amount of time available for testing could be considerably less than the expected lifetime of the component. To overcome such a problem, there is the accelerated life-testing alternative aimed at forcing components to fail by testing them at much higherthan-intended application conditions. These models are known as acceleration models. One possible way to translate test results obtained under accelerated conditions to normal using conditions could be
through the application of the ‘‘Maxwell Distribution Law.’’
