Nonparametric approach to reliability analysis

The object of this paper is to propose a developed nonparametric statistical procedure as an alternative to the classical approach for reliability analysis. We will propose an effective distribution-free procedure to characterize the probabilistic behavior of the failure data, which cannot be identified as those from a classical probability distribution. In addition to offering the computational algorithms, we include a goodness-of-fit method that can be used to test the failure data for the purpose of possibly identifying a classical probability failure model. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed nonparametric reliability procedure.<>