Combined effects of load dynamics and dependence clusters on cascading failures in network systems

A new model has been developed to analyze mixed cascading failures in network systems. The new model offers distinct advantages to analyze the combined impact of network load dynamics and network dependency on failure propagation, and to investigate specific effects of common types of network dependency on network robustness. Previous cascading failure models, focusing on network load dynamics, provide alternative approaches to analyze cascading failures in network systems. However, these studies seldom consider the combined impacts of multiple dependencies among network nodes, which can actually have a great impact on the dynamic behaviors of network systems. Thus, our new model extends previous research by taking both load dynamics and network dependency into account. Using this new model, existing mixed cascading failures can be simulated, and the influence of different types of dependence clusters of network nodes on the robustness of network systems can also be studied. The effects of network topology on network robustness considering mixed cascading failures are also investigated using numerical examples.