Professor PhD. Alexandru Isaic-Maniu (alexandru.isaic@csie.ase.ro)
Centre of Industry and Services Economy, National Institute of Economic Research, The Romanian Academy
Associate Professor PhD. Irina-Maria Dragan (irina.dragan@csie.ase.ro)
Department of Statistics and Econometrics, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies
Associate Professor PhD. Emilia Gogu (emilia.gogu@csie.ase.ro)
Department of Statistics and Econometrics, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies
Associate Professor PhD. Florentina Constantin (florentina.constantin@eam.ase.ro)
Department of Agro-Food and Environmental Economics, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies
ABSTRACT
A constant concern in the field of mechanical engineering is finding the balance between the costs of machining components and the costs of replacing worn processing devices. Determining the optimal moment, to replace processing tools, involves describing their resilience, due to the stress in use, through an appropriate statistical model, which statistically reproduces the behavior under extreme demands. One such model is the Alpha distribution proposed by Drujinin in 1967. The first applications were in engineering practice, in the field of metal processing, the model best describing the behavior of the processing device to the resistance of the processed metal, the stress exerted on the cutting tool, as well as its subsequent resilience.
Along with the bibliographic investigation and the presentation of the distribution’s genesis from a historical point of view, this article presents the estimation of the model’s main parameters, the establishment of the lower tolerance limit and a practical application. Somehow forgotten in the specialized literature, the Alpha distribution has numerous applications, exceeding the boundaries of mechanical engineering, such as the modeling of effects, but especially macroeconomic resilience processes following crises, such as the 2008 global slump or the one generated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords: Alpha distribution, economic resilience, parameter estimation, extreme loads, cutting tools, tolerance limits
JEL Classification: C13, C21, C46, L15, L62, O14
