Overload cascading failure on complex networks with heterogeneous load redistribution

Many real systems including the Internet, power-grid and financial networks experience rare but large overload cascading failures triggered by small initial shocks. Many models on complex networks have been developed to investigate this phenomenon. Most of these models are based on the load redistribution process and assume that the load on a failed node shifts to nearby nodes in the networks either evenly or according to the load distribution rule before the cascade. Inspired by the fact that real power-grid tends to place the excess load on the nodes with high remaining capacities, we study a heterogeneous load redistribution mechanism in a simplified sandpile model in this paper. We find that weak heterogeneity in load redistribution can effectively mitigate the cascade while strong heterogeneity in load redistribution may even enlarge the size of the final failure. With a parameter theta to control the degree of the redistribution heterogeneity, we identify a rather robust optimal theta* = 1. Finally, we find that theta* tends to shift to a larger value if the initial sand distribution is homogeneous. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.