The Weibull Distribution

The Weibull distribution is the complex of the distributions most frequently used in reliability

analysis. It is a more general three-parameter distribution and other distributions, such as,

Exponential, Normal, Log-normal, Gamma and Rayleigh distributions are special cases of this

distribution. The Weibull failure density function is associated with the times to failure of items

and it is uniquely defined by three parameters. By adjusting the Weibull distribution parameters,

it can be made to model a wider range of applications. The general form of density function for a

three-parameter Weibull distribution is given by:

Where, β is called the Shape Parameter, η is the scale parameter, which is also called the

Characteristic Life at which about 63% of the population of items would have failed. The third

parameter γ is called a Location Parameter or minimum life. The Reliability Function for this

distribution for t>= γ is given by the expression,

This distribution is very flexible and using different values of the three parameters it can depict

various shapes of the above functions. As an example, the shapes of the failure Density Function,

Reliability Function, Cumulative Density Function and Hazard Function have been for the

following values of the three parameters, β = 4, η = 1 and γ = 0.

The most commonly used density function for a Weibull distribution is given by the following

simplified expression where the term (η-γ) is considered as a scale parameter, which is always

positive:

In most of the practical applications the failures are assumed to start at time zero, which implies

that the location parameter, γ =0. And substituting 0 for γ can further simplify the above

expressions.
R(t) = exp -(t/η) β,

where (1/η) corresponds to the constant failure rate λ.

If the value of β = 3.2 and γ = 0, the Weibull distribution approximates closely to the Normal

distribution where η corresponds to the mean life and β to the standard deviation.

Figures depict the shapes of R(t) for the above two cases.

Some fundamental properties of Weibull Distribution

• It is a continuous distribution

• This distribution is associated with times to failure of items and it supplements the Exponential

and the Normal distributions.

• While the Exponential is described by a single parameter and the Normal described by two

parameters, three parameters are required to uniquely describe the Weibull.

• A three-parameter Weibull distribution can be reduced to a two-parameter distribution by

assuming that the location parameter γ is always zeroed.

• It is a more general three-parameter distribution and other distributions, such as Exponential,

Normal, Log-normal, Gamma and Rayleigh distributions are special cases of this distribution.

• Depending upon the value of the shape parameter, the Weibull distribution shows the following

properties:

• The Weibull probability graph paper is particularly useful as an exploratory technique in

understanding life test or field data from a product.

Particular Applications of the Weibull Distribution • This distribution holds an important place

among the distributions of lifetime due to the fact that a small difference in the distributions of

lifetime of components can describe the lifetime of a product. For, example, if each of the

components has a normal distribution of lifetime but the parameters of these distributions vary

somewhat from component to component, then for a sufficiently large number of components,

the Weibull is the best distribution to apply.

• The infant-mortality and wearout failure mechanisms are best described by this distribution.

The values of the three parameters of the Weibull distribution can be determined from test data

or field data using Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) technique. The estimated values of

these parameters can indicate a number of things about the product's life cycle-If β < 1 then h(t)

will decrease with time ,t (Represents Early life) If β = 1 then h(t) will be constant with time ,t

(Represents Useful life) If β > 1 then h(t) will increase with time ,t (Represents Wear-out)

• The estimated value of the location parameter ( γ ) indicates the following situations: A value

of less than zero indicates failure in storage. These failures end up as Dead On Arrival (DOA)

when a batch of items is delivered. A positive value of the location parameter suggests that there

is some period of time, which is failure free. This could be considered as a failure free warranty

period.

• It is clear from the above discussion that the Weibull distribution can be applied to model a

variety of situations by the right choice of the parameter values. The Weibull is particularly

useful in reliability work due to its flexibility to model a wide range of lifetime distributions of

different items