Confidence limits for system reliability indices with increasing function of failure intensity

Abstract

The problem of calculating the lower confidence limit for the reliability function and the other main indices, such as the mean time to failure (mean lifetime) and the guaranteed (gamma-percentile) lifetime of a system based on the reliability test results has been considered. The problem is solved under the general nonparametric assumption of the monotonically increasing failure intensity function (aging) of a system. A series of expressions for the lower confidence limits of the aforementioned main reliability indices has been derived.