Robustness of scale-free networks to cascading failures induced by fluctuating loads

Abstract

Taking into account the fact that overload failures in real-world functional networks are usually caused by extreme values of temporally fluctuating loads that exceed the allowable range, we study the robustness of scale-free networks against cascading overload failures induced by fluctuating loads. In our model, loads are described by random walkers moving on a network and a node fails when the number of walkers on the node is beyond the node capacity. Our results obtained by using the generating function method show that scale-free networks are more robust against cascading overload failures than Erdos-Renyi random graphs with homogeneous degree distributions. This conclusion is contrary to that predicted by previous works, which neglect the effect of fluctuations of loads