Speaker: Giovanni Sansavini - ETH Zurich

Venue: Room A-133, SISSA main Campus

Title: Modelling the failure behavior of complex systems and systems of systems - Methods and applications

Abstract: Today's societies rely on a number of engineered systems which are complex and interdependent, e.g. energy supply, transport and communication networks. As a result, failure behaviors emerge from interactions among the topology, physics, and operational procedures that underpin these intricate systems. This poses significant challenges to the assessment of the characteristics of vulnerability, reliability and risk, for which standard risk assessment tools are insufficient. Identifying critical components and assessing scenario consequences and probabilities calls for effective tools to account for topology, physics and operations. This talk presents part of the research at the Reliability and Risk Engineering Laboratory, ETH Zurich, which focuses on modeling the failure behavior of engineered complex systems and systems of systems, designing mitigating and protective actions against the onset and propagation of failures, and identifying operating conditions that increase system robustness. An integrated approach is embraced for modelling interdependent, engineered systems, deploying complex network theory methods for topological and interdependent systems assessment, hybrid topological and electric/gas power flow models, stochastic optimization and Monte Carlo simulation. Snapshots of the developed techniques and tools are also presented and their applicability to the solution of practical problems is discussed.