Citation

Carter ADS. Reliab. Eng. 1983; 4(1): 41-59.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1983, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0143-8174(83)90055-0

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

It is first observed that assembly and maintenance procedures are often carried out correctly, though not always so, and hence the reliability of this operation at infinite time will be greater than zero. None of the standard statistical distributions fit this pattern. A simple transformation has produced a modified form of the Weibull distribution which meets the requirements theoretically postulated for these early life and maintenance-induced failures. It is shown that this distribution can represent field data covering the early life period for which the Weibull distribution is totally inadequate. It has not been possible to test the distribution against maintenance-induced failures, but it is offered as a possible distribution for this purpose.