The Design Aspect of the Bruceton Test for Pyrotechnics Sensitivity Analysis

Abstract

We start with a data set obtained from a study of the CS-M-3 ignitor in a military experiment and is based on the classical up-and-down method of Dixon and Mood (1948). Since the Bruce- ton tests are actively employed in pyrotechnical sensitivity studies, we reexamine this method based on the view that it is designed for data-collection. Two different aspects are addressed: as a design for parameter estimation and as a design for giving clues about the good- ness of fit. Two sets of data are employed to illustrate our points. For the estimation of (µ, σ), the location and the scale parameters, we show that a properly selected up-and-down design is quite infor- mative; for the estimation of xp, the 100p%-th quantile, however, the best selected up-and-down method is only about 50% effective as compared with the corresponding c-optimal design. Although not particularly useful, the up-and-down method does judge the proper selection of underlying model. In any case, all the quantal response models are rather poor in terms goodness of fit.