Title: Resilience and vulnerability in critical infrastructure systems – a physical analogy

Authors: Adrian V. Gheorghe, Dan V. Vamanu

Addresses: Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23259, USA. ' 'Horia Hulubei' National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract: Systems consisting of parts – which may be seen as atomic (indivisible) components that usually come in large numbers are coupled with each other with a strength expressed as coupling |energy| and respond to external stress – were often shown to share behavioural features largely indifferent to the nature of the system. Taking advantage of this, the paper employs the physics concept of hysteresis as a derivative of a cooperative behaviour to show that the systems| observed tendency to resist stress and maintain their state and performance level against the driving stress applied is ubiquous and, especially, off-physics is highly meaningful. In this context, the concepts of resiliency and vulnerability of highly interdependent critical infrastructure systems are introduced and experimented within a |serious gaming| simulation framework.

Keywords: critical infrastructures; resilience; vulnerability; hysteresis; gaming; external stress; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCIS.2009.029116

International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, 2009 Vol.5 No.4, pp.389 - 397

Published online: 04 Nov 2009 *

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