Jeffrey T Scruggs

Research Area(s): Earthquake Engineering, adaptive structures
Nonlinear Dynamics
Structural Engineering
Vibration
Alternative Energy

Professor Scruggs's research concerns the dynamics and control of electromechanical vibratory systems. His research bridges the fields of power electronics, structural mechanics, and nonlinear control.  The general concepts of his work are applicable in many areas, including civil structures, aerospace systems, vehicle suspensions, and MEMS.

One current project concerns the control of seismically-excited civil structures, toward the reduction of risk. Due to the unreliability of external power during earthquakes, such systems must operate in the absence of external power. This research considers control systems which electrically extract energy from a structure, using motors as transducers. By using power electronics to manage this extracted energy, it can be dissipated, transmitted from one place in a structure to another, or stored for reuse. These capabilities can be used to achieve superior performance to that obtainable with simpler passive systems.

Another current project involves tensegrity structures. These are truss structures in which cables are used for all tensile members. They are appealing in applications requiring structures to be lightweight, flexible, controllable, or reconfigurable. This research concerns the use of electronic systems to generate energy from the motion of externally-excited tensegrity structures. Of particular interest is the use of such systems to harvest energy from the motion of ocean waves.

Contact via jeff.scruggs@duke.edu or +1 919 660 5075 (office phone)
Visit via or 165 Hudson (office location)

TEACHING (Fall 2008)

CE 131L.001, MATRIX STRUCT ANALYSIS, TuTh 11:40 AM-12:55 PM
CE 131L.01L, MATRIX STRUCT ANALYSIS, W 04:25 PM-05:40 PM

Representative Publications (More Publications)

1. J.T. Scruggs, A.A. Taflanidis, W.D. Iwan, Non-linear stochastic controllers for semiactive and regenerative systems with guaranteed quadratic performance bounds - Part 1: State feedback control, Journal of Structural Control & Health Monitoring, vol. 14 no. 8 (2007), ppt. 1101-1120 , [ABSTRACT]
   
2. Scruggs, J.T. and Iwan, W.D., Optimal nonlocal and asymmetric structural damping using regenerative force actuation networks, Journal of Engineering Mechanics, vol. 132 no. 9 (2006), ppt. 932 - 940 , [(ASCE)0733-9399(2006)132:9(932)] [abs]
   
3. J.T. Scruggs, Multi-objective optimization of regenerative damping systems in vibrating structures, American Control Conference, 2007. ACC '07, (2007) , [freeabs_all.jsp]
   
4. J.T. Scruggs, R.E. Skelton, Regenerative Tensegrity Structures for Energy Harvesting Applications, 45th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2006, (2006) , [freeabs_all.jsp]
   
5. Scruggs, J.T. and Taflanidis, A.A. and Beck, J.L., Reliability-based control optimization for active base isolation systems, Structural Control and Health Monitoring, vol. 13 no. 2-3 (2006), ppt. 705 - 723 , [107] [abs]