Alcator C-MOD Weekly Highlights August 25, 1997 The Alcator C-Mod maintenance period continued last week with work on the alternator, DNB, Power, and RF systems. Analysis of data from the last run period continues. Rapid progress is being made on the alternator repair. All field coil copper has been removed from the rotor, and much of it has been cleaned. Clean up of the rotor forging has begun, and ultrasonic testing is expected to begin in the next few days. Assembly of the DNB beamline vacuum system was completed and control cables installed. During tests of the backing pump, the beamline was partially evacuated. Control cables and connection points in the DNB vacuum system controller were identified for use by the PLC interface. Testing of the CAMAC modules for the thermocouple/secondary emission data acquisition system began at UT-FRC and will be shipped to MIT as soon as the testing is done. Several options for the isolation amplifier system were identified, and these are being compared. Control wiring for the variac cabinet was completed. Work has started on the control wiring for the magnet supply. We have begun work on the TF power supply aimed at determining the cause of junction overtemp trips during the last run campaign. The overtemp circuits are being fed simulated TF waveforms in an attempt to reproduce the trip conditions. Maintenance on FMIT#1 and #2 is continuing. Both transmitters are undergoing testing into an detuned dummy load, and the arc detection system in the power room is being tested. New tuned arc detectors have been designed. The tuned arc detectors will be installed on D and E ports to isolate the signal from each antenna. This upgrade will allow the arc detector to better discriminate against power radiated from one antenna to the other, which has often caused erroneous trips of the arc detection circuits. The demodulator calibration is nearing completion and the H-probe has been repaired and awaits pressure testing. The PLC wiring for FMIT#3 and FMIT#4 is continuing and the 120 V power to the new racks in the control room has been upgraded. J. Snipes, in collaboration with King-Lap Wong and Guoyong Fu of PPPL is making comparisons between experimental data and rough calculations of the Toroidal Alfven Eigenmode physics. Short bursts of fluctuations have been observed on poloidal field pick-up coil signals during strong ICRF heating applied early in the current rise. The oscillation frequency varies from about 200 to 400 kHz in approximately 15 ms with a very sharp frequency spectrum (FWHM of less than 10 kHz, 1 ms window). The comparisons with TAE theory suggest that a fast ion tail driven by the central resonant H minority ICRH could be responsible for driving TAE modes under these conditions. Measurements with a charge exchange analyzer indicate that there was indeed a strong H ion tail present out to energies of at least 100 keV during the relatively low density (1 x 10^20 m^-3) ramp-up phase of the discharge with strong ICRF heating. TRANSP calculations with FPPRF also indicate tail energies of about 100 keV. Craig Petty of DIII-D spent two days at the PSFC discussing analysis of dimensionless scaling experiments. Approximately half the time was spent going over analysis of DIII-D/C-Mod non-dimensional identity L-mode experiments which were conducted last year, and half on future plans. These included dimensionless scaling experiments of L and H-mode confinement, particle (impurity) transport, L/H threshold, MHD, and turbulence. Dr. Petty also presented a seminar on results of non-dimensional scaling experiments and implications for future devices.