The seismic performance of lead-rubber bearings (LRBs) is significantly affected by both the axial force and loading rate they experience. Accurate assessment of LRBs’ seismic performance, therefore, requires realistic simulation of these forces and rates, as well as of the response of the isolated structure during seismic events. This study conducted a series of real-time hybrid simulations (RTHS) to evaluate the seismic behavior of LRBs in such conditions. The simulations focused on a two-span continuous bridge isolated by LRBs atop the central pier, exposed to horizontal and vertical ground motions. In the RTHS framework, the LRBs were physically tested in the laboratory, while the remainder of the bridge was numerically modeled. Findings from these simulations indicated that the vertical ground motion had a minimal effect on the lateral response of the bridge when isolated by LRBs.

The introduction of autonomous underwater gliders (AUGs) specifically addresses the reduction of operational costs that were previously prohibited with conventional autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) using a "scaling-down" design philosophy by utilizing the characteristics of autonomous drifters to far extend operation duration and coverage. Long-duration, wide-area missions raise the cost and complexity of in-water testing for novel approaches to autonomous mission planning. As a result, a simulator that supports the rapid design, development, and testing of autonomy solutions across a wide range using software-in-the-loop simulation at faster-than-real-time speeds becomes critical. This paper describes a faster-than-real-time AUG simulator that can support high-resolution bathymetry for a wide variety of ocean environments, including ocean currents, various sensors, and vehicle dynamics. On top of the de facto standard ROS-Gazebo framework and open-sourced underwater vehicle simulation packages, features specific to AUGs for ocean mapping are developed. For vehicle dynamics, the next-generation hybrid autonomous underwater gliders (Hybrid-AUGs) operate with both the buoyancy engine and the thrusters to improve navigation for bathymetry mappings, e.g., line trajectory, are is implemented since because it can also describe conventional AUGs without the thrusters. The simulation results are validated with experiments while operating at 120 times faster than the real-time.