A note on the mean residual life function of a parallel system

Abstract

One of the most important types of system structures is the parallel structure. In the present article, we propose a definition for the mean residual life function of a parallel system and obtain some of its properties. The proposed definition measures the mean residual life function of a parallel system consisting of n identical and independent components under the condition that n - i, i = 0, 2,..., n - 1, components of the system are working and other components of the system have already failed. It is shown that, for the case where the components of the system have increasing hazard rate, the mean residual life function of the system is a nonincreasing function of time. Finally, we will obtain an upper bound for the proposed mean residual life function.