Cascading failure

A sequence in which one component’s failure triggers further failures in an interconnected system. It can spread through physical, electrical, digital, or social networks.

Failure propagation: The spread of failure from one component or location to others in a system. This is the basic step linking an initial outage to downstream failures.
2003 Northeast blackout: A major power outage that affected parts of the northeastern and midwestern United States and Ontario on August 14, 2003. A transmission-line failure and subsequent control problems spread outages across a large grid.
Power system stability: The ability of an electric power system to maintain or restore stable operation after a disturbance. Stability analysis tests whether a grid disturbance will settle or trigger further outages.
Systemic risk: The risk that disruption in one part of a system will impair the system as a whole. Cascades are a mechanism by which local failures become system-wide threats.
Load shedding: The deliberate reduction of electrical demand to prevent a power system from becoming unstable. Operators use it to interrupt overload-driven cascades before they spread.
1996 Western North America blackouts: Two large power outages in western North America, on July 2 and August 10, 1996. Both events show how grid disturbances and inadequate voltage control can compound.
Reliability engineering: The engineering discipline concerned with ensuring that systems perform reliably over time. It uses failure analysis and design measures to limit chain reactions in complex systems.
Critical infrastructure: Assets and services essential to a society’s functioning, such as electricity, water, and communications. Failures can cascade among infrastructure systems that depend on one another.
Network topology: The pattern of connections among nodes in a network. Connection patterns determine which components can transmit a failure to others.
2010 European airspace shutdown: The closure of much of European airspace after the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano. A volcanic ash hazard triggered cascading cancellations and disruption across aviation networks.

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