FUSION PROJECT
Collisions hotter than 400 million °C.
Pressures ten thousand times lower than atmospheric.
NUCLEAR FUSION.
AT VANDERBILT.
OUR VISION
The Vanderbilt Fusion Project is a transformative, cross-disciplinary engineering project team and research initiative.
By building a functional miniature nuclear fusion reactor, we hope to spark innovation and inspire others within our campus, community, and nation.
Our goal isn’t just to design, fabricate, and utilize a fusion reactor—it’s to create a unique space for our team members to develop the background and skills necessary to become creative engineers, innovators, and leaders.
Oh, and we'll smash some atoms at ultra-high energies too.
A Nuclear Fusion Reactor.
The Size of a Soccer Ball.
Producing 100,000 nuclear events per second, the Vanderbilt Fusion Project's compact modular reactor will enable cutting-edge research in fields from nanomaterials to plasma dynamics. We're creating and controlling one of the most extreme environments on the planet.
Our reactor integrates both high-voltage and ultra-high vacuum systems, and is engineered to perform as an adaptable, cross-disciplinary test platform. Our control systems apply machine learning and plasma modeling to optimize reactor performance, and gather valuable test data.
Fuel: Deuterium
Operating Voltage: 40,000 Volts
Operating Pressure: 0.40 Torr
Reactor Vessel: Stainless Steel
Grid Construction: Tungsten