Reliability assessment and life prediction for very few failure data

Aiming at the very few failure data which was usually found in life test of high reliability product,a method of reliability assessment and life prediction was put forward.The one-side lower confidence limits of the service life and reliability were derived under the condition of knowing the lower limit of shape parameter of Weibull distribution.It has the merit of that all the failure data and suspension data can be accumulated.Furthermore,the convert formula of the data among different states was established by the principle of damage equivalence.Thus,the data among different states can be analyzed together and the prediction precision is improved.The presented method is a practical approach with simple calculation and convenient application.