Analysis of cutting damages to multipolar networks

The method of estimating changes in the functional capabilities of a multipolar flow network system after a damage is proposed. For each sink arc, the maximal flow is calculated, independent of the flow value across the remaining sink arcs. The authors consider cutting structural damages that correspond to removing all arcs forming a minimal cut. The capacity of the cut is equal to the maximal flow along some sink arc. Among the structural damages, the critically dangerous ones are selected with an introduced criterion. For each arc belonging to at least one cutting structural damage, a quantitative characteristic is computed to estimate consequences of its destruction. The described approach is proposed to be used in studying vulnerability of territorially distributed multiuser systems with the network structure in the case of a single-product transfer.