On the determination of mixing density in reliability studies

In reliability studies the three quantities (1) the survival function, (2) the failure rate and (3) the mean residual life function are all equivalent in the sense that given one of them, the other two can be determined. In this paper we have considered the class of exponential type distributions and studied its mixture. Given any one of the above mentioned three quantities of the mixture a method is developed for determining the mixing density. Some examples are provided as illustrations. Some well known results follow trivially.