Life prediction of neutron tube based on regression analysis and Wiener process

Life prediction is a complicated problem to be solved for the neutron tube which is widely used and plays an important role in many industries. In this paper, research on life prediction using regression analysis and Wiener process was carried out in order to evaluate the service life of the neutron tube quickly. Failure modes of the prefabricated target sealed deuterium-tritium neutron tube were firstly studied. Life tests of the neutron tube were conducted during laboratory at room temperature for about 55 hours. Regression analysis was performed on the experimental data obtained by the life tests of the neutron tube. The service life of the neutron tube was predicted using the regression function and the uncertainty analysis was performed. In order to take the stochasticity of the performance degradation and the yield measurement of the neutron tube into consideration, the Wiener process in which the Kalman filter and the maximum likelihood estimation methods were applied for the parameter solving process was adopted to assess the service life of the neutron tube. A program of the Wiener process was developed and the residual life distribution of the neutron tube was obtained. The predicted life which consisted of the expectation of the residual life and the time of life tests was consistent with that using the regression function. Finally, the scope of applications of the methods and the results in this paper were discussed. The general process in this paper may be used to estimate the service life of the neutron tube in the early stage of development.