Bayesian Reliability Estimation of a New Expendable Launch Vehicle

Hong, Hyejin; Kim, Kyungmee O.

Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management > Volume 42(2); 2014 > Article

Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management 2014;42(2): 199-.

신규 개발하는 소모성 발사체의 베이지안 신뢰도 추정

홍혜진, 김경미

건국대학교 산업공학과

Bayesian Reliability Estimation of a New Expendable Launch Vehicle

Hyejin Hong, Kyungmee O. Kim

Department of Industrial Engineering, Konkuk University

ABSTRACT

Purpose:
This paper explains how to obtain the Bayes estimates of the whole launch vehicle and of a vehicle stage, respectively, for a newly developed expendable launch vehicle.
Methods:
We determine the parameters of the beta prior distribution using the upper bound of the 60% Clopper-Pearson confidence interval of failure probability which is calculated from previous launch data considering the experience of the developer.
Results:
Probability that a launch vehicle developed from an inexperienced developer succeeds in the first launch is obtained by about one third, which is much smaller than that estimated from the previous research.
Conclusion:
The proposed approach provides a more conservative estimate than the previous noninformative prior, which is more reasonable especially for the initial reliability of a new vehicle which is developed by an inexperienced developer.

Key Words: Clopper-Pearson Confidence Interval;Beta Posterior Distribution;Stage-Based Reliability;