Errors due to departure from independence in exponential series system

Abstract

In reliability and life testing, when the exponentially distributed components are put in series, it is generally assumed that the lifetimes of the components are independently distributed, which leads to some errors when in fact they are not independent. In this paper, we study the relative errors incurred in different reliability measures due to such assumptions when actually they follow some bivariate exponential distributions. The behavior of the relative errors are demonstrated through a real life data.

KEYWORDS & PHRASES:

• Hazard rate
• mean residual life
• reliability function
• reversed hazard rate

AMS SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION:

• 62N05

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the editor, the associate editor and the reviewers for careful reading of the manuscript.