APPLICATION OF RELIABILITY-ANALYSIS METHOD TO FUSION COMPONENT TESTING

The purpose of this paper is to discuss a basic reliability analysis m ethod that is beneficial to fusion component test planning. Emphasis i s placed on formulating the problem to be solved and on determining th e required test time and the number of test articles needed to verify a performance or a failure criterion. While an increasing failure rate is likely to be the case for the fusion component resulting from irra diation effects, analysis is performed to show how the life characteri stics impact the test requirements. Taking into account the available data from similar technology experiences, calculations based on the Ba yesian approach indicate a possible saving on the test time requiremen t.