Software engineer · Mechanical engineer · Fusion engineer?
I want to build a tokamak.
What can I say? I'm ambitious.
A benchtop ohmic tokamak — roughly the size of a car tire — designed from first principles one step at a time.
field line · q = 4Bt = 0.3 T
R = 0.2 m · a = 0.05 mIp = 1–5 kA · pulse ≈ 3 ms
Te ≈ 22 eV · ne ≈ 2×10¹⁹ m⁻³neutrons ≈ 0
The project
Project Status
- Complete01ConceptHere I establish the design goals and expectations of this project: Small enough for a garage, big enough to produce plasma.
- R = 0.2 m, a = 0.05 m, Bt = 0.3 T
- Ohmic heating only; no auxiliary power
- Pulsed operation from capacitor banks, ≈ 3 ms per shot
- Phase 1 · 7 of 7 steps02PhysicsThe arithmetic that governs the operation capabilities and requirements of the design.
- 01 Toroidal field — 300 kA·turns, 16 × 20 turns
- 02 Safety factor — q(a) = 3.75, ceiling 6.25 kA
- 03 Flux budget — 20 mWb → 3 ms pulse
- 04 Breakdown — 5× margin, stray Bz < 1 mT
- 05 Greenwald — 31 % of the density limit
- 06 Ohmic equilibrium — Te = 22 eV, neutrons ≈ 0
- 07 Lawson — 10⁸ from ignition, decomposed
- Phase 2 · Next03DesignDetailed designs for all components. This includes structural components, metrology and also controllers.
- Central solenoid, TF coils and compensation coils
- Capacitor banks, switching and timing
- Vacuum vessel with insulating break; D₂ gas system
- Diagnostics: D-alpha photodiode, Rogowski, loop voltage, DAQ
- Planned04BuildConstruction of the actual device. TBD
- Stray-field survey: |Bz| < 1 mT across the plasma region
- Vacuum and leak-down to the 10⁻⁴ Torr prefill window
- TF and OH bank commissioning at 10 % current, then scale-up
- First plasma — and a measured τE from D-alpha decay
How far from fusion, exactly?
n · T · τE · keV·s/m³ · log scale≈ 7 × 10⁷ — eight orders of magnitude
This machine4.4×10¹³ · derived
D-T ignition~3.0×10²¹ · textbook
10¹³10¹⁴10¹⁵10¹⁶10¹⁷10¹⁸10¹⁹10²⁰10²¹10²²GOLEM-class~1.0×10¹⁴ · order of magnitude
JET~8.0×10²⁰ · textbook
ITER goal~5.0×10²¹ · textbook
Eight orders of magnitude. A real tokamak on the ground floor of the diagram, not a small fusion reactor. Confinement time is bought with meters and temperature with megawatts — neither is available on a bench.
About
Mechanical engineer by degree, software engineer by trade. Seven years of Full-Stack, Data and ML systems.
EducationB.S. Mechanical Engineering, Rose-Hulman
FocusData pipelines · ML systems · AWS
CertificationAWS Certified ML Engineer – Associate
Selected work
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