Inside of the Thermo Nuclear Reactor

School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) students Neal Birchfield, Hallee Deutchman, Joseph Stilla, and Heather Keever, designed and fabricated an Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) Thermonuclear Fusion Reactor for their Senior Design Capstone Project. Birchfield, Deutchman, and Stilla later showed their reactor to President and Mrs. Hodge, and Dean Dollár, where they demonstrated the fusion of deuterium into helium. Unlike traditional fission nuclear reactors, the SEAS Thermonuclear Fusion Reactor is not radioactive.

Neal Birchfield was the original founder of the project. He first thought of the idea to design and build the Thermonuclear Fusion Reactor during his Junior year. He wanted to pursue a project that would be challenging yet achievable, and at the same time relatively impressive and noteworthy. This project reflects President Hodge’s vision of students as scholars in which students conceive ideas for projects and then work on them under the supervision of a faculty advisor. When most people think about thermonuclear fusion, they think about advanced energy solutions. While that may become a goal for later on, these Miami student engineers were primarily concerned with the potential usefulness of their reactor technology to help fight cancer. Their goal was to develop a fusion reactor prototype that could be used as a proof of concept for later future reactor projects aimed at producing biomedical isotopes useful for diagnosing and treating cancer.

President Hodge is given a tour of the reactor

Whether for fighting cancer, or for providing nearly limitless energy, thermonuclear fusion has great future potential in the service of humanity. Engineering students at Miami University will continue to help lead the way forward, and the SEAS Thermonuclear Fusion Reactor will make a very nice foundation for them to build upon.