FAILURE TIME DISTRIBUTION UNDER A δ-SHOCK MODEL AND ITS APPLICATION TO ECONOMIC DESIGN OF SYSTEMS

Suppose that shocks arrive and act on a system according to a Poisson distribution with mean rate of arrival equal to λ shock(s) per unit time. A δ-shock failure model is proposed in this paper, which assumes that when a system is acted on by a shock, it will recover fully in time δ(>0), and after that it will function as if no shock had occurred before. If the time lag between two successive shocks is less than δ, the second shock will cause failure of the system. Theoretical expressions related to the distribution of the failure time of the system are derived. These results can be used to optimize the design of a system from a costing point of view.