On the lifetime behavior of a discrete time shock model

In this article, we study a shock model in which the shocks occur according to a binomial process, i.e. the interarrival times between successive shocks follow a geometric distribution with mean 1/p. According to the model, the system fails when the time between two consecutive shocks is less than a prespecified level. This is the discrete time version of the so-called delta-shock model which has been previously studied for the continuous case. We obtain the probability mass function and probability generating function of the system's lifetime. We also present an extension of the results to the case where the shock occurrences are dependent in a Markovian fashion. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.