Bayesian analysis of general failure data from an ageing distribution: advances in numerical methods

EDF and ENEA carried out a joint research program for developing the numerical methods and computer codes needed for Bayesian analysis of component-lives in the case of ageing. Early results of this study were presented at ESREL'94. Since then the following further steps have been gone: input data have been generalized to the case that observed lives are censored both on the right and on the left; allowable life distributions are Weibull and gamma - their parameters are both unknown and can be statistically dependent; allowable priors are histograms relative to different parametrizations of the life distribution of concern; first-and-second-order-moments of the posterior distributions can be computed. In particular the covariance will give some important information about the degree of the statistical dependence between the parameters of interest. An application of the code to the appearance of a stress corrosion cracking in a tube of the PWR Steam Generator system is presented. (authors)