  To date, the prospect of using real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) to study
the effects of long-term or 'wear-and-tear' loads, such as exposure to harmful
environmental conditions or fatigue, has remained underexplored. This study
presents a conceptual framework to assess the impact of long-term degradation
on infrastructure systems. The framework integrates the capabilities of RTHS
with accelerated degradation techniques to evaluate the behavior of a degrading
system over time. Experimental results obtained in this way not only capture
the complex interactions but also provide a reliability-based method to
determine the expected time-to-failure of the evaluated system. The developed
framework is demonstrated using a virtual RTHS platform designed to test
fiber-reinforced elastomeric isolators.
