Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-30T20:47:18.337Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Failure rate — a unified approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2016

Larry Lee
Affiliation:
University of Missouri-Columbia
W. A. Thompson Jr.
Affiliation:
University of Missouri-Columbia

Abstract

Aging, of biological and mechanical systems, is well described as ‘deterioration of the power to withstand destruction.’ The failure-rate concept is the mathematical way of describing aging. Failure rates have been defined for discrete and continuous time and used extensively, particularly in actuarial science and reliability. This paper assumes an arbitrary scale on which an object encounters stress, and develops a theory of failure rate with respect to ‘stress-time’ in analogy with the discrete- and continuous-time cases.

Type
Short Communications
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 1976 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barlow, R. and Proschan, F. (1965) Mathematical Theory of Reliability. Wiley, New York.Google Scholar
Barlow, R. E. and Scheuer, E. M. (1971) Estimation from accelerated life tests. Technometrics 13, 145159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chiang, C. (1968) Introduction to Stochastic Processes in Bio-Statistics. Wiley, New York.Google Scholar
Cox, D. R. (1972) Regression models and life tables. J. R. Statist. Soc. B 34, 187202.Google Scholar
Hewitt, E. and Stromberg, K. (1965) Real and Abstract Analysis. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York.Google Scholar
Mercer, A. (1961) Some simple wear-dependent renewal processes. J. R. Statist. Soc. B 23, 368376.Google Scholar
Munroe, M. E. (1971) Measure and Integration. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts.Google Scholar