A Framework for Augmented Resilience Analysis to Inform Critical Infrastructure System Architectural Selection

Modern societies rely on interdependent critical infrastructures where cyber-physical systems must operate reliably despite natural hazards, technical failures, and hostile attacks. Yet current systems engineering practices often lack a structured method to evaluate resilience during the design phase, leaving deployed systems vulnerable to cascading disruptions. This praxis develops a framework and process for resilience analysis that integrates model-based systems engineering with simulation, enabling early comparison of architectural alternatives under varied threat conditions. The research surveys the state of resilience analysis and engineering, critical infrastructure protection, and architectural decision-making, identifying gaps in methods applicable to ICI contexts. It then proposes a modular methodology that represents system dependencies, requirements, and threat models in an extensible form. The methodology is operationalized through a custom Python-based simulation environment interfaced with the Hetero-Functional Graph Theory tools, producing resilience metrics across diverse system sizes and attack vectors. The implementation is demonstrated on four candidate architectures tested against five attack types across twenty network configurations. Results provide quantifiable differentiation in resilience performance, supporting informed architectural down selection. Key findings show that resilience-informed analysis not only distinguishes architectures with similar functional capabilities but also highlights design tradeoffs relevant to recovery speed, robustness, and adaptability. This work contributes first a comparative resilience analysis process aligned with MBSE practices, and secondly a software implementation that enables systems engineers to evaluate candidate designs before deployment. The framework aids both design optimization and contingency planning, offering practical value to engineers, municipalities, and organizations tasked with developing resilient critical infrastructure systems.

Author

• Cappellano, Vincent A

Language

• en

Keyword

• Synthesis
• Systems
• Resilience
• Simulation
• Architecture
• Design

Date created

• 2026

Type of Work

• Dissertation

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Systems Engineering

Degree

• D.Engr.

Advisor

• Grenn, Michael W

Committee Member(s)

• Bierce, Jonathan
• Eveleigh, Timothy

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/4b29b676k