Sequential Testing and Confidence Intervals for the MTBF (Meantime between Failures) of Systems Having Exponential Distribution of the Interfailure Times

Abstract

The application of the Wald SPRT to life testing of equipment, having an exponential distribution of the interfailure times, has been in practice from fifties. The problem discussed in the present paper is that of the exact computation of the distributions of the stopping times, and the determination of confidence limits for the meantime between failures (MTBF), theta, after stopping. Formulae are developed for the exact computation of the distribution of stopping times in sequential life testing, according to a modified SPRT. These distributions yield the fractiles of the stopping times at acceptance or at rejection, from which confidence limits for the MTBF can be obtained.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 23, 1985
Accession Number
ADA165189

Entities

People

  • S. Zacks

Organizations

  • George Washington University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Computations
  • Confidence Limits
  • Contracts
  • Data Science
  • Engineering
  • Information Science
  • Intervals
  • Mathematics
  • Military Research
  • New York
  • Probability
  • Probability Distributions
  • Rejection
  • Security
  • Statistics
  • Time Intervals

Fields of Study

  • Engineering
  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Statistical inference.