ESTIMATION SUBJECT TO BLOCK CENSORING

A series system comprises n components arranged in decreasing order of likelihood of failure. The components are grouped into modules and, o n system failure, the modules are replaced in sequence until the syste m is repaired. Thus, it is not known which component has failed, only which module contains the failed component, It is shown how, for a cer tain class of life-length distributions, prior information on the rela tive propensities of the components to fail can be incorporated to est imate the parameters of the life-length distributions of the component s. The case where each component life-length is exponentially distribu ted is studied in detail.