Problems of risk assessment in intersystem failures of life support facilities

International Journal of Critical Infrastructures. 2016. Vol. 12. No. 3. P. 213–228.

Lesnykh V., Petrov V., Timofeyeva T. B.

The urbanisation process growing rapidly during the latest several dozens of years leads to proliferation of infrastructurally complex territories. At the same time, growing interaction of critical infrastructures in combination with the increased frequency and scales of anomalous natural processes result in the growth of the intersystem failures. The intersystem failures can be characterised by cascading processes and disastrous consequences. Such failures are characterised by a high level of social and economic impact affecting various critical infrastructures (energy supply, transport, water supply, telecommunications, finance, etc.), which requires development of the methods and models for assessment of their occurrence and progress. The given paper is devoted to the problems of classification and quantitative assessment of intersystem accident consequences including cascade failure process. Classification of intersystem accident is proposed based on topology of cascade process. Moreover, topology-based and flow-based approaches are used for modelling of intersystem accidents in power and gas supply systems. 

Keywords: simulation, classification, Cascading failures, Critical infrastructures, Intersystem failures