OPTIMAL REPLACEMENT FOR SELF-REPAIRING SHOCK MODELS WITH GENERAL FAILURE RATE.

A device is subject to a series of shocks which cause damage and eventually failure will occur at the time of arrival of one of the shocks. In between the shocks, the device is partially repaired as the cumulative damage decreases as some Markov process. The device must be replaced upon failure at some cost but it can also be replaced before failure at a lower cost. The general case is considered where the failure rate need not be increasing and replacement can be made at any time. The form of the optimal replacement policy is found and fairly general conditions are given for which a control limit policy is optimal.