In the following papers, Elasticity was proposed as a metric to characterize robustness of complex networks based on the topology of the network and traffic flows through the network:

A. Sydney, C. Scoglio, P. Schumm, R. Kooij
"ELASTICITY: Topological Characterization of Robustness in Complex Networks"
in Proceedings of IEEE/ACM Bionetics, Hyogo, Japan, 2008

A. Sydney, C. Scoglio, M. Youssef, P. Schumm "Characterizing the Robustness of Complex Networks"
Int. J. Internet Technology and Secured Transactions, Vol. 2, Nos 3/4, pp. 291-320, 2010

In these papers, Elasticity is defined as the area below the curve of throughput verses number of nodes removed and quantifies the ability for a network to maintain its total throughput under increasing removal of nodes (and corresponding links). The upper bound for Elasticity was analytically proven to be 1/3. Finally, elasticity was used to extract the characteristics of robust complex networks which were:

1. A short characteristic path length
2. Low heterogeneity
3. A homogeneous core such that hubs are concentrated on the periphery of the network to provide resilience against targeted attacks (such as the HOT topology described by Alderson et al. cited below).

REF:
Alderson, D., Li, L. and Willinger, C.D.W. (2005) ‘Understanding internet topology: principles,
models, and validation’, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 13, pp.1205–1218.