Title :
A new explanation of decreasing failure rate of a mixture of exponentials
Author_Institution :
Florida Int. Univ., Miami, FL, USA
fDate :
12/1/1998 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
It is well known that the mixture of exponential distributions has a decreasing failure rate, even though each component in the mixture has a constant failure rate. This result is elegant but sometimes seen as a paradox. This paper shows that the proportion of strong (weak) subpopulation with small (large) failure rates in the mixture increases (decreases) as time passes. Based on this fact, a non-Bayes explanation is given for the mixture of exponentials to have a decreasing failure rate
Keywords :
exponential distribution; failure analysis; constant failure rate; decreasing failure rate; exponential distributions mixture; non-Bayes explanation; Density functional theory; Density measurement; Exponential distribution; Integrated circuit modeling; Measurement standards; Predictive models; Stochastic processes; Time measurement;
Journal_Title :
Reliability, IEEE Transactions on