Template:Alta exponential conditional reliability

Conditional Reliability

The conditional reliability function for the 1-parameter exponential distribution is given by:

[math]\displaystyle{ R(T,t)=\frac{R(T+t)}{R(T)}=\frac{{{e}^{-\lambda (T+t)}}}{{{e}^{-\lambda T}}}={{e}^{-\lambda t}} }[/math]

which says that the reliability for a mission of t duration, undertaken after the component or equipment has already accumulated T hours of operation from age zero, is only a function of the mission duration, and not a function of the age at the beginning of the mission. This is referred to as the "memoryless property."