This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.

In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.

Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.

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Description
Nowadays product reliability becomes the top concern of the manufacturers and customers always prefer the products with good performances under long period. In order to estimate the lifetime of the product, accelerated life testing (ALT) is introduced because most of the products can last years even decades. Much research has

Nowadays product reliability becomes the top concern of the manufacturers and customers always prefer the products with good performances under long period. In order to estimate the lifetime of the product, accelerated life testing (ALT) is introduced because most of the products can last years even decades. Much research has been done in the ALT area and optimal design for ALT is a major topic. This dissertation consists of three main studies. First, a methodology of finding optimal design for ALT with right censoring and interval censoring have been developed and it employs the proportional hazard (PH) model and generalized linear model (GLM) to simplify the computational process. A sensitivity study is also given to show the effects brought by parameters to the designs. Second, an extended version of I-optimal design for ALT is discussed and then a dual-objective design criterion is defined and showed with several examples. Also in order to evaluate different candidate designs, several graphical tools are developed. Finally, when there are more than one models available, different model checking designs are discussed.
ContributorsYang, Tao (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Borror, Connie (Committee member) / Rigdon, Steve (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Accelerated life testing (ALT) is the process of subjecting a product to stress conditions (temperatures, voltage, pressure etc.) in excess of its normal operating levels to accelerate failures. Product failure typically results from multiple stresses acting on it simultaneously. Multi-stress factor ALTs are challenging as they increase the number of

Accelerated life testing (ALT) is the process of subjecting a product to stress conditions (temperatures, voltage, pressure etc.) in excess of its normal operating levels to accelerate failures. Product failure typically results from multiple stresses acting on it simultaneously. Multi-stress factor ALTs are challenging as they increase the number of experiments due to the stress factor-level combinations resulting from the increased number of factors. Chapter 2 provides an approach for designing ALT plans with multiple stresses utilizing Latin hypercube designs that reduces the simulation cost without loss of statistical efficiency. A comparison to full grid and large-sample approximation methods illustrates the approach computational cost gain and flexibility in determining optimal stress settings with less assumptions and more intuitive unit allocations.

Implicit in the design criteria of current ALT designs is the assumption that the form of the acceleration model is correct. This is unrealistic assumption in many real-world problems. Chapter 3 provides an approach for ALT optimum design for model discrimination. We utilize the Hellinger distance measure between predictive distributions. The optimal ALT plan at three stress levels was determined and its performance was compared to good compromise plan, best traditional plan and well-known 4:2:1 compromise test plans. In the case of linear versus quadratic ALT models, the proposed method increased the test plan's ability to distinguish among competing models and provided better guidance as to which model is appropriate for the experiment.

Chapter 4 extends the approach of Chapter 3 to ALT sequential model discrimination. An initial experiment is conducted to provide maximum possible information with respect to model discrimination. The follow-on experiment is planned by leveraging the most current information to allow for Bayesian model comparison through posterior model probability ratios. Results showed that performance of plan is adversely impacted by the amount of censoring in the data, in the case of linear vs. quadratic model form at three levels of constant stress, sequential testing can improve model recovery rate by approximately 8% when data is complete, but no apparent advantage in adopting sequential testing was found in the case of right-censored data when censoring is in excess of a certain amount.
ContributorsNasir, Ehab (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Runger, George C. (Committee member) / Gel, Esma (Committee member) / Kao, Ming-Hung (Committee member) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
In the three phases of the engineering design process (conceptual design, embodiment design and detailed design), traditional reliability information is scarce. However, there are different sources of information that provide reliability inputs while designing a new product. This research considered these sources to be further analyzed: reliability information from similar

In the three phases of the engineering design process (conceptual design, embodiment design and detailed design), traditional reliability information is scarce. However, there are different sources of information that provide reliability inputs while designing a new product. This research considered these sources to be further analyzed: reliability information from similar existing products denominated as parents, elicited experts' opinions, initial testing and the customer voice for creating design requirements. These sources were integrated with three novels approaches to produce reliability insights in the engineering design process, all under the Design for Reliability (DFR) philosophy. Firstly, an enhanced parenting process to assess reliability was presented. Using reliability information from parents it was possible to create a failure structure (parent matrix) to be compared against the new product. Then, expert opinions were elicited to provide the effects of the new design changes (parent factor). Combining those two elements resulted in a reliability assessment in early design process. Extending this approach into the conceptual design phase, a methodology was created to obtain a graphical reliability insight of a new product's concept. The approach can be summarized by three sequential steps: functional analysis, cognitive maps and Bayesian networks. These tools integrated the available information, created a graphical representation of the concept and provided quantitative reliability assessments. Lastly, to optimize resources when product testing is viable (e.g., detailed design) a type of accelerated life testing was recommended: the accelerated degradation tests. The potential for robust design engineering for this type of test was exploited. Then, robust design was achieved by setting the design factors at some levels such that the impact of stress factor variation on the degradation rate can be minimized. Finally, to validate the proposed approaches and methods, different case studies were presented.
ContributorsMejia Sanchez, Luis (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Villalobos, Jesus R (Committee member) / See, Tung-King (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
This thesis presents a meta-analysis of lead-free solder reliability. The qualitative analyses of the failure modes of lead- free solder under different stress tests including drop test, bend test, thermal test and vibration test are discussed. The main cause of failure of lead- free solder is fatigue crack, and the

This thesis presents a meta-analysis of lead-free solder reliability. The qualitative analyses of the failure modes of lead- free solder under different stress tests including drop test, bend test, thermal test and vibration test are discussed. The main cause of failure of lead- free solder is fatigue crack, and the speed of propagation of the initial crack could differ from different test conditions and different solder materials. A quantitative analysis about the fatigue behavior of SAC lead-free solder under thermal preconditioning process is conducted. This thesis presents a method of making prediction of failure life of solder alloy by building a Weibull regression model. The failure life of solder on circuit board is assumed Weibull distributed. Different materials and test conditions could affect the distribution by changing the shape and scale parameters of Weibull distribution. The method is to model the regression of parameters with different test conditions as predictors based on Bayesian inference concepts. In the process of building regression models, prior distributions are generated according to the previous studies, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is used under WinBUGS environment.
ContributorsXu, Xinyue (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
The main objective of this research is to develop an approach to PV module lifetime prediction. In doing so, the aim is to move from empirical generalizations to a formal predictive science based on data-driven case studies of the crystalline silicon PV systems. The evaluation of PV systems aged 5

The main objective of this research is to develop an approach to PV module lifetime prediction. In doing so, the aim is to move from empirical generalizations to a formal predictive science based on data-driven case studies of the crystalline silicon PV systems. The evaluation of PV systems aged 5 to 30 years old that results in systematic predictive capability that is absent today. The warranty period provided by the manufacturers typically range from 20 to 25 years for crystalline silicon modules. The end of lifetime (for example, the time-to-degrade by 20% from rated power) of PV modules is usually calculated using a simple linear extrapolation based on the annual field degradation rate (say, 0.8% drop in power output per year). It has been 26 years since systematic studies on solar PV module lifetime prediction were undertaken as part of the 11-year flat-plate solar array (FSA) project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) funded by DOE. Since then, PV modules have gone through significant changes in construction materials and design; making most of the field data obsolete, though the effect field stressors on the old designs/materials is valuable to be understood. Efforts have been made to adapt some of the techniques developed to the current technologies, but they are too often limited in scope and too reliant on empirical generalizations of previous results. Some systematic approaches have been proposed based on accelerated testing, but no or little experimental studies have followed. Consequently, the industry does not exactly know today how to test modules for a 20 - 30 years lifetime.

This research study focuses on the behavior of crystalline silicon PV module technology in the dry and hot climatic condition of Tempe/Phoenix, Arizona. A three-phase approach was developed: (1) A quantitative failure modes, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA) was developed for prioritizing failure modes or mechanisms in a given environment; (2) A time-series approach was used to model environmental stress variables involved and prioritize their effect on the power output drop; and (3) A procedure for developing a prediction model was proposed for the climatic specific condition based on accelerated degradation testing
ContributorsKuitche, Joseph Mathurin (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Tamizhmani, Govindasamy (Thesis advisor) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
In this era of fast computational machines and new optimization algorithms, there have been great advances in Experimental Designs. We focus our research on design issues in generalized linear models (GLMs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI). The first part of our research is on tackling the challenging problem of constructing

exact

In this era of fast computational machines and new optimization algorithms, there have been great advances in Experimental Designs. We focus our research on design issues in generalized linear models (GLMs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI). The first part of our research is on tackling the challenging problem of constructing

exact designs for GLMs, that are robust against parameter, link and model

uncertainties by improving an existing algorithm and providing a new one, based on using a continuous particle swarm optimization (PSO) and spectral clustering. The proposed algorithm is sufficiently versatile to accomodate most popular design selection criteria, and we concentrate on providing robust designs for GLMs, using the D and A optimality criterion. The second part of our research is on providing an algorithm

that is a faster alternative to a recently proposed genetic algorithm (GA) to construct optimal designs for fMRI studies. Our algorithm is built upon a discrete version of the PSO.
ContributorsTemkit, M'Hamed (Author) / Kao, Jason (Thesis advisor) / Reiser, Mark R. (Committee member) / Barber, Jarrett (Committee member) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Pan, Rong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
This dissertation is to address product design optimization including reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) and robust design with epistemic uncertainty. It is divided into four major components as outlined below. Firstly, a comprehensive study of uncertainties is performed, in which sources of uncertainty are listed, categorized and the impacts are discussed.

This dissertation is to address product design optimization including reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) and robust design with epistemic uncertainty. It is divided into four major components as outlined below. Firstly, a comprehensive study of uncertainties is performed, in which sources of uncertainty are listed, categorized and the impacts are discussed. Epistemic uncertainty is of interest, which is due to lack of knowledge and can be reduced by taking more observations. In particular, the strategies to address epistemic uncertainties due to implicit constraint function are discussed. Secondly, a sequential sampling strategy to improve RBDO under implicit constraint function is developed. In modern engineering design, an RBDO task is often performed by a computer simulation program, which can be treated as a black box, as its analytical function is implicit. An efficient sampling strategy on learning the probabilistic constraint function under the design optimization framework is presented. The method is a sequential experimentation around the approximate most probable point (MPP) at each step of optimization process. It is compared with the methods of MPP-based sampling, lifted surrogate function, and non-sequential random sampling. Thirdly, a particle splitting-based reliability analysis approach is developed in design optimization. In reliability analysis, traditional simulation methods such as Monte Carlo simulation may provide accurate results, but are often accompanied with high computational cost. To increase the efficiency, particle splitting is integrated into RBDO. It is an improvement of subset simulation with multiple particles to enhance the diversity and stability of simulation samples. This method is further extended to address problems with multiple probabilistic constraints and compared with the MPP-based methods. Finally, a reliability-based robust design optimization (RBRDO) framework is provided to integrate the consideration of design reliability and design robustness simultaneously. The quality loss objective in robust design, considered together with the production cost in RBDO, are used formulate a multi-objective optimization problem. With the epistemic uncertainty from implicit performance function, the sequential sampling strategy is extended to RBRDO, and a combined metamodel is proposed to tackle both controllable variables and uncontrollable variables. The solution is a Pareto frontier, compared with a single optimal solution in RBDO.
ContributorsZhuang, Xiaotian (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Zhang, Muhong (Committee member) / Du, Xiaoping (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
Functional or dynamic responses are prevalent in experiments in the fields of engineering, medicine, and the sciences, but proposals for optimal designs are still sparse for this type of response. Experiments with dynamic responses result in multiple responses taken over a spectrum variable, so the design matrix for a dynamic

Functional or dynamic responses are prevalent in experiments in the fields of engineering, medicine, and the sciences, but proposals for optimal designs are still sparse for this type of response. Experiments with dynamic responses result in multiple responses taken over a spectrum variable, so the design matrix for a dynamic response have more complicated structures. In the literature, the optimal design problem for some functional responses has been solved using genetic algorithm (GA) and approximate design methods. The goal of this dissertation is to develop fast computer algorithms for calculating exact D-optimal designs.



First, we demonstrated how the traditional exchange methods could be improved to generate a computationally efficient algorithm for finding G-optimal designs. The proposed two-stage algorithm, which is called the cCEA, uses a clustering-based approach to restrict the set of possible candidates for PEA, and then improves the G-efficiency using CEA.



The second major contribution of this dissertation is the development of fast algorithms for constructing D-optimal designs that determine the optimal sequence of stimuli in fMRI studies. The update formula for the determinant of the information matrix was improved by exploiting the sparseness of the information matrix, leading to faster computation times. The proposed algorithm outperforms genetic algorithm with respect to computational efficiency and D-efficiency.



The third contribution is a study of optimal experimental designs for more general functional response models. First, the B-spline system is proposed to be used as the non-parametric smoother of response function and an algorithm is developed to determine D-optimal sampling points of a spectrum variable. Second, we proposed a two-step algorithm for finding the optimal design for both sampling points and experimental settings. In the first step, the matrix of experimental settings is held fixed while the algorithm optimizes the determinant of the information matrix for a mixed effects model to find the optimal sampling times. In the second step, the optimal sampling times obtained from the first step is held fixed while the algorithm iterates on the information matrix to find the optimal experimental settings. The designs constructed by this approach yield superior performance over other designs found in literature.
ContributorsSaleh, Moein (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Runger, George C. (Committee member) / Kao, Ming-Hung (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
A quantitative analysis of a system that has a complex reliability structure always involves considerable challenges. This dissertation mainly addresses uncertainty in- herent in complicated reliability structures that may cause unexpected and undesired results.

The reliability structure uncertainty cannot be handled by the traditional relia- bility analysis tools such as Fault

A quantitative analysis of a system that has a complex reliability structure always involves considerable challenges. This dissertation mainly addresses uncertainty in- herent in complicated reliability structures that may cause unexpected and undesired results.

The reliability structure uncertainty cannot be handled by the traditional relia- bility analysis tools such as Fault Tree and Reliability Block Diagram due to their deterministic Boolean logic. Therefore, I employ Bayesian network that provides a flexible modeling method for building a multivariate distribution. By representing a system reliability structure as a joint distribution, the uncertainty and correlations existing between system’s elements can effectively be modeled in a probabilistic man- ner. This dissertation focuses on analyzing system reliability for the entire system life cycle, particularly, production stage and early design stages.

In production stage, the research investigates a system that is continuously mon- itored by on-board sensors. With modeling the complex reliability structure by Bayesian network integrated with various stochastic processes, I propose several methodologies that evaluate system reliability on real-time basis and optimize main- tenance schedules.

In early design stages, the research aims to predict system reliability based on the current system design and to improve the design if necessary. The three main challenges in this research are: 1) the lack of field failure data, 2) the complex reliability structure and 3) how to effectively improve the design. To tackle the difficulties, I present several modeling approaches using Bayesian inference and nonparametric Bayesian network where the system is explicitly analyzed through the sensitivity analysis. In addition, this modeling approach is enhanced by incorporating a temporal dimension. However, the nonparametric Bayesian network approach generally accompanies with high computational efforts, especially, when a complex and large system is modeled. To alleviate this computational burden, I also suggest to building a surrogate model with quantile regression.

In summary, this dissertation studies and explores the use of Bayesian network in analyzing complex systems. All proposed methodologies are demonstrated by case studies.
ContributorsLee, Dongjin (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Du, Xiaoping (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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Description
Bayesian networks are powerful tools in system reliability assessment due to their flexibility in modeling the reliability structure of complex systems. This dissertation develops Bayesian network models for system reliability analysis through the use of Bayesian inference techniques.

Bayesian networks generalize fault trees by allowing components and subsystems to be related

Bayesian networks are powerful tools in system reliability assessment due to their flexibility in modeling the reliability structure of complex systems. This dissertation develops Bayesian network models for system reliability analysis through the use of Bayesian inference techniques.

Bayesian networks generalize fault trees by allowing components and subsystems to be related by conditional probabilities instead of deterministic relationships; thus, they provide analytical advantages to the situation when the failure structure is not well understood, especially during the product design stage. In order to tackle this problem, one needs to utilize auxiliary information such as the reliability information from similar products and domain expertise. For this purpose, a Bayesian network approach is proposed to incorporate data from functional analysis and parent products. The functions with low reliability and their impact on other functions in the network are identified, so that design changes can be suggested for system reliability improvement.

A complex system does not necessarily have all components being monitored at the same time, causing another challenge in the reliability assessment problem. Sometimes there are a limited number of sensors deployed in the system to monitor the states of some components or subsystems, but not all of them. Data simultaneously collected from multiple sensors on the same system are analyzed using a Bayesian network approach, and the conditional probabilities of the network are estimated by combining failure information and expert opinions at both system and component levels. Several data scenarios with discrete, continuous and hybrid data (both discrete and continuous data) are analyzed. Posterior distributions of the reliability parameters of the system and components are assessed using simultaneous data.

Finally, a Bayesian framework is proposed to incorporate different sources of prior information and reconcile these different sources, including expert opinions and component information, in order to form a prior distribution for the system. Incorporating expert opinion in the form of pseudo-observations substantially simplifies statistical modeling, as opposed to the pooling techniques and supra Bayesian methods used for combining prior distributions in the literature.

The methods proposed are demonstrated with several case studies.
ContributorsYontay, Petek (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Shunk, Dan L. (Committee member) / Du, Xiaoping (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016