In this paper we extend the class of zero-order threshold autoregressive models to a much richer class of mixture models. The new class has the important property of duality which, as we show, corresponds to time reversal. We are then able to obtain the time reversals of the zero-order threshold models and to characterise the time-reversible members of this subclass. These turn out to be quite trivial. The time-reversible models of the more general class do not suffer in this way. The complete stationary distributional structure is given, as are various moments, in particular the autocovariance function. This is shown to be of ARMA type. Finally we give two examples, the second of which extends from the finite to the countable mixture case. The general theory for this extension will be given elsewhere.

Time series models for non-linear random vibrations are discussed from the viewpoint of the specification of the dynamics of the damping and restoring force of vibrations, and a non-linear threshold autoregressive model is introduced. Typical non-linear phenomena of vibrations are demonstrated using the models. Stationarity conditions and some structural aspects of the model are briefly discussed. Applications of the model in the statistical analysis of real data are also shown with numerical results.