The aging process is a common phenomenon in engineering, biological, and physical systems. The hazard rate function, which characterizes the aging process, is a fundamental quantity in the disciplines of reliability, failure, and risk analysis. However, it is difficult to determine the entire hazard function accurately with limited observation data when the degradation mechanism is not fully understood. Inspired by the seminal work pioneered by Jaynes [Phys. Rev. 106, 620 (1956)], this study develops an approach based on the principle of maximum entropy. In particular, the time-dependent hazard rate function can be established using limited observation data in a rational manner. It is shown that the developed approach is capable of constructing and interpreting many typical hazard rate curves observed in practice, such as the bathtub curve, the upside down bathtub, and so on. The developed approach is applied to model a classical single function system and a numerical example is used to demonstrate the method. In addition its extension to a more general multifunction system is presented. Depending on the interaction between different functions of the system, two cases, namely reducible and irreducible, are discussed in detail. A multifunction electrical system is used for demonstration.

• Received 28 September 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.101.012106