Reliability Analysis for Multi-Phase Wiener Processes Considering Phase- Varying Nonlinearity

Degradation reliability analysis incorporating two-phase or even multi-phase features has become a research focus in recent years. Motivated by the fact that a practical multi-phase degradation procedure may probably involve both linear phases and nonlinear phases, a multi-phase degradation model is constructed that can consider the phase-varying nonlinear property. The unit-to-unit variability is incorporated. Meanwhile, the reliability function based on the first passage time (FPT) conception is derived, where the solution for the two-phase situation is first obtained, and the one for the multi-phase circumstance is constructed via a reclusive scheme. To verify the reasonability of the proposed reliability function, a simulation study has been complemented. Then two real applications are given to demonstrate the validity and the effectiveness of the proposed method.