Recent developments in humidity sensors have heightened the need for reliability. Seeing as many products such as humidity sensors experience multiple dependent competing failure processes (MDCFPs) with self-recovery, this paper proposes a new general reliability model. Previous research into MDCFPs has primarily focused on the processes of degradation and random shocks, which are appropriate for most products. However, the existing reliability models for MDCFPs cannot fully characterize the failure processes of products such as humidity sensors with significant self-recovery, leading to an underestimation of reliability. In this paper, the effect of self-recovery on degradation was analyzed using a conditional probability. A reliability model for soft failure with self-recovery was obtained. Then, combined with the model of hard failure due to random shocks, a general reliability model with self-recovery was established. Finally, reliability tests of the humidity sensors were presented to verify the proposed reliability model. Reliability modeling for products subject to MDCFPs with considering self-recovery can provide a better understanding of the mechanism of failure and offer an alternative method to predict the reliability of products.
Keywords: dependent competing failure; humidity sensor; random shocks; reliability model; self-recovery.