The efficiency of complex technological systems requires the guarantee on their reliability against underlying catastrophes. The complexity encoded in their structure and functions makes cascading failures the main failure mode in complex systems. The development of complex systems’ reliability technology relies on the modelling and simulation of the cascading failure. For the complex system, it is difficult to perform macroscopic analysis with tools based on probability theory because of their numerous system states. Meanwhile, it is also difficult to analyse it completely by microscopic system details due to their nonlinear coupling characteristics. The properties of complex systems require systematic analysis in multi-level. As the network science becomes available to model and study the complex system, its underlying concept of statistical physics is suitable to understand the complex system from the relationship between macroscopic properties and microscopic activities. We will review the progress made by network science recently including latest formalism of interdependent network theory, which can be used to understand and study the reliability problem of complex system.
