Description: Topological theory of resilience and failure spreading in flow networks

This title appears in the Scientific Report : 2021

Topological theory of resilience and failure spreading in flow networks

Link failures in supply networks can have catastrophic consequences that can lead to a complete collapse of the network. Strategies to prevent failure spreading are thus heavily sought after. Here, we make use of a spanning tree formulation of link failures in linear flow networks to analyze topolog...

Personal Name(s):	Kaiser, Franz (Corresponding author)
	Witthaut, Dirk
Contributing Institute:	Systemforschung und Technologische Entwicklung; IEK-STE
Published in:	Physical review research, 3 (2021) 2, S. 023161
Imprint:	College Park, MD APS 2021
DOI:	10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.023161
Document Type:	Journal Article
Research Program:	Energie System 2050 Helmholtz Young Investigators Group "Efficiency, Emergence and Economics of future supply networks" Kollektive Nichtlineare Dynamik Komplexer Stromnetze Energiesystemtransformation
Link:	OpenAccess
	Publikationsportal JuSER

Please use the identifier: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.023161 in citations.
Please use the identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/2128/27962 in citations.

Link failures in supply networks can have catastrophic consequences that can lead to a complete collapse of the network. Strategies to prevent failure spreading are thus heavily sought after. Here, we make use of a spanning tree formulation of link failures in linear flow networks to analyze topological structures that prevent failure spreading. In particular, we exploit a result obtained for resistor networks based on the matrix tree theorem to analyze failure spreading after link failures in power grids. Using a spanning tree formulation of link failures, we analyze three strategies based on the network topology that allow us to reduce the impact of single link failures. All our strategies either do not reduce the grid's ability to transport flow or do in fact improve it - in contrast to traditional containment strategies based on lowering network connectivity. Our results also explain why certain connectivity features completely suppress any failure spreading as reported in recent publications.