Suppressing cascades of load in interdependent networks

By Charles D. Brummitt, Raissa M. D’Souza, Elizabeth A. Leicht. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011

543 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Understanding how interdependence among systems affects cascading behaviors is increasingly important across many fields of science and engineering. Inspired by cascades of load shedding in coupled electric grids and other infrastructure, we study the Bak–Tang–Wiesenfeld sandpile model on modular random graphs and on graphs based on actual, interdependent power grids. Starting from two isolated networks, adding some connectivity between them is beneficial, for it suppresses the largest cascades in each system. Too much interconnectivity, however, becomes detrimental for two reasons. First, interconnections open pathways for neighboring networks to inflict large cascades. Second, as in real infrastructure, new interconnections increase capacity and total possible load, which fuels even larger cascades. Using a multitype branching process and simulations we show these effects and estimate the optimal level of interconnectivity that balances their trade-offs. Such equilibria could allow, for example, power grid owners to minimize the largest cascades in their grid. We also show that asymmetric capacity among interdependent networks affects the optimal connectivity that each prefers and may lead to an arms race for greater capacity. Our multitype branching process framework provides building blocks for better prediction of cascading processes on modular random graphs and on multitype networks in general.

Subfields: Mathematical Physics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/afb0018f34e593f95fe3ad6cc59b3bf461167982

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Citations in the corpus

Multilayer networks (2013, background): “Importantly, a small number of empirical studies have used other types of multilayer networks: four of the investigated examples of empirical interacting and interdependent networks are power stations and the internet servers on which they depend [68,278], coupled power grids [65], coupled climate n”
The structure and dynamics of multilayer networks (2014, methodology): “[81] cascades of loads have been proposed to study the robustness of multilayer infrastructures and power-grids.”
A quantitative method for assessing resilience of interdependent infrastructures (2017, background): “Even though not preventable, these damages may be minimized, if the capabilities of both direct and indirect affected infrastructures are strengthened and effects of interdependencies are recognized [6-8].”
The Power Grid as a Complex Network: a Survey (2011, methodology): “The analysis in [62] is centered on the eﬀects that connectivity has in networks.”
Network resilience (2020, background): “between systems into consideration, many studies have been carried out to study the robustness in interdependent networks [14, 810, 811, 812, 813, 814, 815, 816, 648, 619, 817, 818], interconnected networks [819, 820, 649], multi-layered networks [821, 822, 823, 824, 825], multiplex networks [826], ”
Dynamics of information diffusion and its applications on complex networks (2016, background): “Recently, many theoretical models are proposed to describe the emergence of the large cascades, such as the sandpile model [165], the thresholdmodel [9], simple spreading process and so on.”
Mathematical Formulation of Multilayer Networks (2013, unknown): “[17] C.”