Analyzing the structural vulnerability of the process industry system

a new method for system safety based on the complex networks theory is proposed. The network model of the process industry system is constructed and the inherent topological structure characteristics are investigated. Subsequently

to study the cascade effect caused by the fault of a node in the network

a cascading failure model based on the basic characteristic parameters of the network is proposed

and then the damage of cascading failure triggered by a single node in the system is simulated. A case study of Tennessee-Eastman process is provided to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method. The simulation results show that the mechanism of cascading failures can be analyses and understood from a complex network perspective

and the method enables to find the critical node and the crisp node of the process industry system for design the system of the safety control and failure prevention.