Related papers: Burst statistics as a criterion for imminent failu…
Inspired by reliability issues in electric transmission networks, we use a probabilistic approach to study the occurrence of large failures in a stylized cascading failure model. In this model, lines have random capacities that initially…
Power law-like size distributions are ubiquitous in astrophysical instabilities. There are at least four natural effects that cause deviations from ideal power law size distributions, which we model here in a generalized way: (1) a physical…
We propose a model which explains how power-law crossover behaviour can arise in a system which is capable of experiencing cascading failure. In our model the susceptibility of the system to cascades is described by a single number, the…
Statistics of waves of topplings in the Sandpile model is analysed both analytically and numerically. It is shown that the probability distribution of dissipating waves of topplings that touch the boundary of the system obeys power-law with…
We investigate numerically the failure process when two elastic media, one hard and one soft that have been glued together thus forming a common interface, are pulled apart. We present three main results: (1) The area distribution of…
A damped chain of particles with harmonic nearest-neighbor interactions in a spatially periodic, piecewise harmonic potential (Frenkel-Kontorova model) is studied numerically. One end of the chain is pulled slowly which acts as a weak…
A study on the behavior of off-site AC power failure recovery times at three nuclear plant sites is presented. It is shown, that power law is appropriate for the representation of failure frequency-duration correlation function of off-site…
Disordered systems are characterized by the existence of many sample- dependent local energy minima, that cause a stepwise response when the system is perturbed. In this article we use an approach based on elementary probabilistic methods…
In a recent publication [PRL {\bf 81}, 1142 (1998)] it was argued that a randomly forced particle which collides inelastically with a boundary can undergo inelastic collapse and come to rest in a finite time. Here we discuss the survival…
We investigate by means of computer simulations the effect of structural disorder on the statistics of cracking for a thin layer of material under uniform and isotropic drying. The layer is discretized into a triangular lattice of springs.…
We study the breakdown of a random fiber bundle model (RFBM) with $n$-discontinuities in the threshold distribution using the global load sharing scheme. In other words, $n+1$ different classes of fibers identified on the basis of their…
We study probability distributions of waves of topplings in the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld model on hypercubic lattices for dimensions D>=2. Waves represent relaxation processes which do not contain multiple toppling events. We investigate bulk…
We investigate a one-dimensional rice-pile model. We show that the distribution of dissipated potential energy decays as a power law with an exponent $\alpha=1.53$. The system thus provides a one-dimensional example of self-organized…
Molecular dynamics simulations with varying damping are used to examine the effects of inertia and spatial dimension on sheared disordered solids in the athermal, quasistatic limit. In all cases the distribution of avalanche sizes follows a…
We study distributions of dissipative and nondissipative avalanches in Manna's stochastic sandpile, in one and two dimensions. Our results lead to the following conclusions: (1) avalanche distributions, in general, do not follow simple…
Avalanche dynamics is an indispensable feature of complex systems. Here we study the self-organized critical dynamics of avalanches on scale-free networks with degree exponent $\gamma$ through the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld (BTW) sandpile model.…
We investigate statistics and scaling laws of avalanches in two-dimensional frictional particles by numerical simulations. We find that the critical exponent for avalanche size distributions is governed by microscopic friction between the…
Dynamical processes exhibiting absorbing states are essential in the modeling of a large variety of situations from material science to epidemiology and social sciences. Such processes exhibit the possibility of avalanching behavior upon…
We observe the failure process of a fiber bundle model with a variable stress release range, $\gamma$, higher the value of $\gamma$ lower the stress release range. By tuning $\gamma$ from low to high, it is possible to go from the…
We present an extension of the continuous damage fiber bundle model to describe the gradual degradation of highly heterogeneous materials under an increasing external load. Breaking of a fiber in the model is preceded by a sequence of…