Weibull distribution explained
Weibull (2-parameter) |
Type: | density |
Parameters: |
scale
shape |
Support: |
|pdf =f(x)=\begin{cases}
| k | \left( | λ |
\right)k-1
,&x\geq0,\\
0,&x<0.\end{cases}
|cdf =F(x)=\begin{cases}1-
,&x\geq0,\ 0,&x<0.\end{cases}
|quantile =
|mean =
|median =
|mode =\begin{cases}
λ\left(
\right)1/k,&k>1,\\
0,&k\leq1.\end{cases}
|variance =
\right)-\left(\Gamma\left(1+
\right)\right)2\right]
|skewness = | \Gamma(1+3/k)λ3-3\mu\sigma2-\mu3 | \sigma3 |
|kurtosis =(see text)|entropy =
|mgf =
|char =
|KLDiv = see below |
In probability theory and statistics, the Weibull distribution is a continuous probability distribution. It models a broad range of random variables, largely in the nature of a time to failure or time between events. Examples are maximum one-day rainfalls and the time a user spends on a web page.
The distribution is named after Swedish mathematician Waloddi Weibull, who described it in detail in 1939,[1] although it was first identified by René Maurice Fréchet and first applied by to describe a particle size distribution.
Definition
Standard parameterization
The probability density function of a Weibull random variable is[2] [3]
f(x;λ,k)=
\begin{cases}
\right)k-1
,&x\geq0,\\
0,&x<0,
\end{cases}
where k > 0 is the shape parameter and λ > 0 is the scale parameter of the distribution. Its complementary cumulative distribution function is a stretched exponential function. The Weibull distribution is related to a number of other probability distributions; in particular, it interpolates between the exponential distribution (k = 1) and the Rayleigh distribution (k = 2 and
[4]).
If the quantity X is a "time-to-failure", the Weibull distribution gives a distribution for which the failure rate is proportional to a power of time. The shape parameter, k, is that power plus one, and so this parameter can be interpreted directly as follows:[5]
indicates that the
failure rate decreases over time (like in case of the
Lindy effect, which however corresponds to
Pareto distributions[6] rather than Weibull distributions). This happens if there is significant "infant mortality", or defective items failing early and the failure rate decreasing over time as the defective items are weeded out of the population. In the context of the
diffusion of innovations, this means negative word of mouth: the hazard function is a monotonically decreasing function of the proportion of adopters;
indicates that the failure rate is constant over time. This might suggest random external events are causing mortality, or failure. The Weibull distribution reduces to an exponential distribution;
indicates that the failure rate increases with time. This happens if there is an "aging" process, or parts that are more likely to fail as time goes on. In the context of the
diffusion of innovations, this means positive word of mouth: the hazard function is a monotonically increasing function of the proportion of adopters. The function is first convex, then concave with an inflection point at
.
In the field of materials science, the shape parameter k of a distribution of strengths is known as the Weibull modulus. In the context of diffusion of innovations, the Weibull distribution is a "pure" imitation/rejection model.
Alternative parameterizations
First alternative
Applications in medical statistics and econometrics often adopt a different parameterization.[7] [8] The shape parameter k is the same as above, while the scale parameter is
. In this case, for
x ≥ 0, the probability density function is
the cumulative distribution function is
the quantile function is
Q(p;k,b)=\left(-
ln(1-p)
,
the hazard function is
and the mean is
Second alternative
A second alternative parameterization can also be found.[9] [10] The shape parameter k is the same as in the standard case, while the scale parameter λ is replaced with a rate parameter β = 1/λ. Then, for x ≥ 0, the probability density function is
f(x;k,\beta)=\betak({\betax})k-1
the cumulative distribution function is
the quantile function is
and the hazard function is
h(x;k,\beta)=\betak({\betax})k-1.
In all three parameterizations, the hazard is decreasing for k < 1, increasing for k > 1 and constant for k = 1, in which case the Weibull distribution reduces to an exponential distribution.
Properties
Density function
The form of the density function of the Weibull distribution changes drastically with the value of k. For 0 < k < 1, the density function tends to ∞ as x approaches zero from above and is strictly decreasing. For k = 1, the density function tends to 1/λ as x approaches zero from above and is strictly decreasing. For k > 1, the density function tends to zero as x approaches zero from above, increases until its mode and decreases after it. The density function has infinite negative slope at x = 0 if 0 < k < 1, infinite positive slope at x = 0 if 1 < k < 2 and null slope at x = 0 if k > 2. For k = 1 the density has a finite negative slope at x = 0. For k = 2 the density has a finite positive slope at x = 0. As k goes to infinity, the Weibull distribution converges to a Dirac delta distribution centered at x = λ. Moreover, the skewness and coefficient of variation depend only on the shape parameter. A generalization of the Weibull distribution is the hyperbolastic distribution of type III.
Cumulative distribution function
The cumulative distribution function for the Weibull distribution is
for x ≥ 0, and F(x; k; λ) = 0 for x < 0.
If x = λ then F(x; k; λ) = 1 − e−1 ≈ 0.632 for all values of k. Vice versa: at F(x; k; λ) = 0.632 the value of x ≈ λ.
The quantile (inverse cumulative distribution) function for the Weibull distribution is
for 0 ≤ p < 1.
The failure rate h (or hazard function) is given by
h(x;k,λ)={k\overλ}\left({x\overλ}\right)k-1.
The Mean time between failures MTBF is
MTBF(k,λ)=λ\Gamma(1+1/k).
Moments
The moment generating function of the logarithm of a Weibull distributed random variable is given by
\operatornameE\left[etlog\right]=
+1\right)
where is the gamma function. Similarly, the characteristic function of log X is given by
\operatornameE\left[eitlog\right]=λit\Gamma\left(
+1\right).
In particular, the nth raw moment of X is given by
mn=λn\Gamma\left(1+
\right).
The mean and variance of a Weibull random variable can be expressed as
\operatorname{E}(X)=λ\Gamma\left(1+
\right)
and
\operatorname{var}(X)=
\right)-\left(\Gamma\left(1+
\right)\right)2\right].
The skewness is given by
\gamma | |
| 1= | | 3-3\Gamma | | 2\Gamma | | 2+\Gamma3 | | 1\Gamma | |
| |
|
where
, which may also be written as
\gamma | |
| 1= | \Gamma\left(1+ | 3 | \right)λ3-3\mu\sigma2-\mu3 | k |
| \sigma3 |
|
where the mean is denoted by and the standard deviation is denoted by .
The excess kurtosis is given by
\gamma | |
| 2= | | 2\Gamma | | -6\Gamma | | \Gamma3+\Gamma4 | | 2-3\Gamma | |
| |
|
where
. The kurtosis excess may also be written as:
\gamma | |
| 2= | | | | λ | | | 3\mu-6\mu | )-4\gamma | | | 1\sigma | 2\sigma2-\mu4 |
| \sigma4 |
|
-3.
Moment generating function
A variety of expressions are available for the moment generating function of X itself. As a power series, since the raw moments are already known, one has
\operatornameE\left[etX\right]=
\right).
Alternatively, one can attempt to deal directly with the integral
\operatornameE\left[etX\right]=
etx
\right)k-1
dx.
If the parameter k is assumed to be a rational number, expressed as k = p/q where p and q are integers, then this integral can be evaluated analytically.[11] With t replaced by −t, one finds
\operatornameE\left[e-tX\right]=
ktk}
} \, G_^ \!\left(\left. \begin \frac, \frac, \dots, \frac \\ \frac, \frac, \dots, \frac \end \; \right| \, \frac \right) where
G is the
Meijer G-function.
The characteristic function has also been obtained by . The characteristic function and moment generating function of 3-parameter Weibull distribution have also been derived by by a direct approach.
Minima
Let
be independent and identically distributed Weibull random variables with scale parameter
and shape parameter
. If the minimum of these
random variables is
, then the cumulative probability distribution of
given by
That is,
will also be Weibull distributed with scale parameter
and with shape parameter
.
Reparametrization tricks
Fix some
. Let
be nonnegative, and not all zero, and let
be independent samples of
, then
[12] \argmini(gi
)\simCategorical\left(
\right)j
mini(gi
)\simWeibull\left(\left(\sumi\pii\right)-\alpha,\alpha-1\right)
.
Shannon entropy
The information entropy is given by
H(λ,k)=\gamma\left(1-
\right)+ln\left(
\right)+1
where
is the
Euler–Mascheroni constant. The Weibull distribution is the
maximum entropy distribution for a non-negative real random variate with a fixed
expected value of
xk equal to
λk and a fixed expected value of ln(
xk) equal to ln(
λk) −
.
Kullback–Leibler divergence
The Kullback–Leibler divergence between two Weibulll distributions is given by[13]
DKL(Weib1\parallelWeib2)=log
-log
+(k1-k2)\left[logλ1-
\right]+\left(
\Gamma\left(
+1\right)-1
Parameter estimation
Ordinary least square using Weibull plot
of data on special axes in a type of
Q–Q plot. The axes are
versus
. The reason for this change of variables is the cumulative distribution function can be linearized:
\begin{align}
F(x)&=
\\[4pt]
-ln(1-F(x))&=
| k\\[4pt]
\underbrace{ln(-ln(1-F(x)))} |
(x/λ) | |
| rm{'y' |
} &= \underbrace_ - \underbrace_\endwhich can be seen to be in the standard form of a straight line. Therefore, if the data came from a Weibull distribution then a straight line is expected on a Weibull plot.
There are various approaches to obtaining the empirical distribution function from data: one method is to obtain the vertical coordinate for each point using
where
is the rank of the data point and
is the number of data points.
[15] [16] Linear regression can also be used to numerically assess goodness of fit and estimate the parameters of the Weibull distribution. The gradient informs one directly about the shape parameter
and the scale parameter
can also be inferred.
Method of moments
The coefficient of variation of Weibull distribution depends only on the shape parameter:[17]
CV2=
=
| \Gamma\left(1+ | 2 | \right)-\right)\right)2 | k |
|
\left(\Gamma\left(1+ | 1 | \right)\right)2 | k |
|
.
Equating the sample quantities
to
, the moment estimate of the shape parameter
can be read off either from a look up table or a graph of
versus
. A more accurate estimate of
can be found using a root finding algorithm to solve
| \Gamma\left(1+ | 2 | \right)-\right)\right)2 | k |
|
\left(\Gamma\left(1+ | 1 | \right)\right)2 | k |
|
=
2}.
The moment estimate of the scale parameter can then be found using the first moment equation as
}.
Maximum likelihood
The maximum likelihood estimator for the
parameter given
is
[17]
The maximum likelihood estimator for
is the solution for
k of the following equation
[18]
This equation defines
only implicitly, one must generally solve for
by numerical means.
When
are the
largest observed samples from a dataset of more than
samples, then the maximum likelihood estimator for the
parameter given
is
[18]
Also given that condition, the maximum likelihood estimator for
is
Again, this being an implicit function, one must generally solve for
by numerical means.
Applications
The Weibull distribution is used
is the
mass fraction of particles with diameter smaller than
, where
is the mean particle size and
is a measure of the spread of particle sizes.
- In describing random point clouds (such as the positions of particles in an ideal gas): the probability to find the nearest-neighbor particle at a distance
from a given particle is given by a Weibull distribution with
and
equal to the density of the particles.
[24] - In calculating the rate of radiation-induced single event effects onboard spacecraft, a four-parameter Weibull distribution is used to fit experimentally measured device cross section probability data to a particle linear energy transfer spectrum.[25] The Weibull fit was originally used because of a belief that particle energy levels align to a statistical distribution, but this belief was later proven false and the Weibull fit continues to be used because of its many adjustable parameters, rather than a demonstrated physical basis.[26]
Related distributions
, then the variable
is Gumbel (minimum) distributed with location parameter
and scale parameter
. That is,
.
f(x;k,λ,\theta)={k\overλ}\left({x-\theta\overλ}\right)k-1e-\left({x-\theta\right)k}
for
and
for
, where
is the
shape parameter,
is the
scale parameter and
is the
location parameter of the distribution.
value sets an initial failure-free time before the regular Weibull process begins. When
, this reduces to the 2-parameter distribution.
- The Weibull distribution can be characterized as the distribution of a random variable
such that the random variable
is the standard
exponential distribution with intensity 1.
- This implies that the Weibull distribution can also be characterized in terms of a uniform distribution: if
is uniformly distributed on
, then the random variable
is Weibull distributed with parameters
and
. Note that
here is equivalent to
just above. This leads to an easily implemented numerical scheme for simulating a Weibull distribution.
- The Weibull distribution interpolates between the exponential distribution with intensity
when
and a
Rayleigh distribution of mode
when
.
}(x;k,\lambda)=\frac \left(\frac\right)^ e^ = f_(x;-k,\lambda).
- The distribution of a random variable that is defined as the minimum of several random variables, each having a different Weibull distribution, is a poly-Weibull distribution.
- The Weibull distribution was first applied by to describe particle size distributions. It is widely used in mineral processing to describe particle size distributions in comminution processes. In this context the cumulative distribution is given by
},m) = \begin1-e^ & x\geq0,\\0 & x<0,\end where
is the particle size
} is the 80th percentile of the particle size distribution
is a parameter describing the spread of the distribution
then
}) (
Exponential distribution)
can be regarded as Lévy's stability parameter. A Weibull distribution can be decomposed to an integral of kernel density where the kernel is either a
Laplace distribution
or a
Rayleigh distribution
:
F(x;k,λ)=
\begin{cases}
F(x;1,λ\nu)\left(\Gamma\left(
+1\right)ak{N}k(\nu)\right)d\nu,
&1\geqk>0;or\\
F(x;2,\sqrt{2}λs)\left(\sqrt{
} \, \Gamma \left(\frac+1 \right) V_k(s) \right) \, ds, & 2 \geq k > 0; \end
where
is the
Stable count distribution and
is the Stable vol distribution.
See also
Bibliography
- .
- 10.1109/TIT.2005.855598 . 2237527 . Gaussian Class Multivariate Weibull Distributions: Theory and Applications in Fading Channels . IEEE Transactions on Information Theory . 51 . 10 . 3608–19 . 2005 . Sagias . N.C. . Karagiannidis . G.K.. 14654176 .
- .
- Book: http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/eda/section3/eda3668.htm . Weibull Distribution . Engineering statistics handbook . . 2008.
- Web site: Dispersing Powders in Liquids, Part 1, Chap 6: Particle Volume Distribution . 2008-02-05 . Nelson Jr . Ralph . 2008-02-05.
External links
Notes and References
- Bowers, et. al. (1997) Actuarial Mathematics, 2nd ed. Society of Actuaries.
- Book: Papoulis . Athanasios Papoulis . Pillai . S. Unnikrishna . Probability, Random Variables, and Stochastic Processes . Boston . McGraw-Hill . 4th . 2002 . 0-07-366011-6 .
- 10.1111/j.1740-9713.2018.01123.x . The Weibull distribution. Significance . 15 . 2 . 10–11 . 2018 . Kizilersu . Ayse . Kreer . Markus . Thomas . Anthony W. . free .
- Web site: Rayleigh Distribution – MATLAB & Simulink – MathWorks Australia. www.mathworks.com.au.
- 10.1016/j.ress.2011.09.003 . A study of Weibull shape parameter: Properties and significance . Reliability Engineering & System Safety . 96 . 12 . 1619–26 . 2011 . Jiang . R. . Murthy . D.N.P. .
- Eliazar. Iddo. November 2017. Lindy's Law. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications. 486. 797–805. 2017PhyA..486..797E. 10.1016/j.physa.2017.05.077. 125349686 .
- Book: Collett, David . Modelling survival data in medical research . Boca Raton . Chapman and Hall / CRC . 3rd . 2015 . 978-1439856789 .
- Book: Cameron . A. C. . Trivedi . P. K. . Microeconometrics : methods and applications . 2005 . 978-0-521-84805-3 . 584.
- Book: Kalbfleisch. J. D.. The statistical analysis of failure time data. Prentice. R. L.. J. Wiley. 2002. 978-0-471-36357-6. 2nd. Hoboken, N.J.. 50124320.
- Web site: Therneau. T.. 2020. R package version 3.1.. A Package for Survival Analysis in R..
- See for the case when k is an integer, and for the rational case.
- Balog . Matej . Tripuraneni . Nilesh . Ghahramani . Zoubin . Weller . Adrian . 2017-07-17 . Lost Relatives of the Gumbel Trick . International Conference on Machine Learning . en . PMLR . 371–379.
- 1310.3713 . cs.IT . Christian . Bauckhage . Computing the Kullback-Leibler Divergence between two Weibull Distributions . 2013.
- Web site: 1.3.3.30. Weibull Plot. www.itl.nist.gov.
- Wayne Nelson (2004) Applied Life Data Analysis. Wiley-Blackwell
- Barnett . V. . 1975 . Probability Plotting Methods and Order Statistics . Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series C (Applied Statistics) . 24 . 1 . 95–108 . 10.2307/2346708 . 0035-9254.
- Maximum Likelihood Estimation in the Weibull Distribution Based on Complete and on Censored Samples . A. Clifford . Cohen . Technometrics . 4 . 7 . Nov 1965 . 579-588.
- Book: Sornette, D. . 2004 . Critical Phenomena in Natural Science: Chaos, Fractals, Self-organization, and Disorder. .
- Web site: Wind Speed Distribution Weibull – REUK.co.uk. www.reuk.co.uk.
- Book: Liu. Chao. White. Ryen W.. Dumais. Susan. 2010-07-19. Understanding web browsing behaviors through Weibull analysis of dwell time. ACM. 379–386. 10.1145/1835449.1835513. 9781450301534. 12186028 .
- 10.1016/0040-1625(80)90026-8 . The Weibull distribution as a general model for forecasting technological change . Technological Forecasting and Social Change . 18 . 3 . 247–56 . 1980 . Sharif . M.Nawaz . Islam . M.Nazrul .
- https://books.google.com/books?id=9RFdUPgpysEC&dq=Rosin-Rammler+distribution+2+Parameter+Weibull+distribution&pg=PA49 Computational Optimization of Internal Combustion Engine
- Book: Austin . L. G. . Klimpel . R. R. . Luckie . P. T. . Process Engineering of Size Reduction . 1984 . Guinn Printing Inc. . Hoboken, NJ . 0-89520-421-5.
- Chandrashekar . S. . Stochastic Problems in Physics and Astronomy . Reviews of Modern Physics . 15 . 1 . 1943 . 86.
- November 15, 2008. ECSS-E-ST-10-12C – Methods for the calculation of radiation received and its effects, and a policy for design margins. European Cooperation for Space Standardization.
- L. D. Edmonds. C. E. Barnes. L. Z. Scheick. May 2000. An Introduction to Space Radiation Effects on Microelectronics. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. 8.3 Curve Fitting. 75–76.
- Web site: System evolution and reliability of systems. Sysev (Belgium). 2010-01-01.
- Book: Montgomery, Douglas. Introduction to statistical quality control. John Wiley. [S.l.]. 9781118146811. 95. 2012-06-19.
- Chatfield . C. . Goodhardt . G.J. . 1973 . A Consumer Purchasing Model with Erlang Interpurchase Times . Journal of the American Statistical Association . 68 . 344. 828–835 . 10.1080/01621459.1973.10481432.