Is Voltage Collapse Triggered by the Boundary Crisis of a Strange Attractor?

Bifurcations occurring in power system models exhibiting voltage collapse have been the subject of several recent studies. Although such models have been shown to admit a variety of bifurcation phenomena, the view that voltage collapse is triggered by possibly the simplest of these, namely by the (static) saddle node bifurcation of the nominal equilibrium, has been the dominant one. The authors have recently shown that voltage collapse can occur "prior" to the saddle node bifurcation. In the present paper, a new dynamical mechanism for voltage collapse is determined: the boundary crisis of a strange attractor. This conclusion is reached for an example power system model akin to one studied in several recent papers. The identified mechanism for voltage collapse is tied to the disappearance of a strange attractor through collision with a coexisting saddle equilibrium point. This mechanism reconciles two previously existing pieces of evidence on the nature of voltage collapse, since it results in solution trajectories containing both an oscillatory component (as predicted by recent analytical work), and a sharp, steady drop in voltage (as observed in the field).