On the Hybrid Normal Distribution and Its Application in Fiber Data on the Strength of Glass

Abstract

The hybrid normal (HN) distribution is a new generalization of the normal distribution that we introduce and study in this article. Its mathematical foundation is based on the logarithmically transformed version of the famous hybrid log-normal (HLN) distribution, which is an unexplored direction in the literature. We emphasize the applicability of the HN distribution with the aim of fitting versatile data, such as, in this paper, fiber data on the strength of glass. In particular, the unknown parameters are estimated using both Bayesian and maximum likelihood estimation approaches, with Bayesian estimation carried out using the MCMC approach. A thorough simulation study is performed to determine the flexibility of the estimates’ performance. The glass fiber data are then analyzed, with an assessment of several existing distributions from the literature used to demonstrate how the HN distribution is relevant in this regard.