Alcator C-Mod Weekly Highlights
			       September 21, 1998


Engineering:

Reassembly of Alcator C-Mod was begun last week with the  installation of
the central column.  Several OH stack support blocks have been installed and
a rough alignment obtained.  We will continue this week with the 
installation of the remaining OH blocks, EF1 coils, and mounting plates.
We also continued work on the lower TF arms.  Feltmetal that was peeled for
inspection purposes showed very good solder bonds.  These feltmetal pads
are now being replaced.  All silver plating on the arms was completed last
week.  Curved fiberglass layups that had to be removed to do the silver
plating are also being replaced.  

FMIT#3 and #4 remote control system checkout continues.  The digital
I/O testing has been completed, and we are ready to begin testing
the analog components.  Work on the J-port antenna continues.  The pacing
item for the antenna arrival is the inconel Faraday shield.  It is being
copper plated with shipment expected 9/24.  The port cover has been machined
and the cowl was completed and is ready for installation.  The earliest the
antenna will be ready for fit-up assembly (at PPPL) is October 5th, and its
earliest expected arrival at MIT is October 13th.  We have begun to develop
the new diagnostics and instrumentation needed for the new antenna and
transmitters.  

We continued the development of the DNB.  The vacuum oil dryer
system was tested and damaged heaters were replaced.  We will begin
using this system next week.  Work continued on the fast control logic
and analog signal conditioning boards for the HV supply, and construction of
the F-Port flange.  Potential interferences for the low capacitance
transmission line in the cell were identified and the cell layout for the
line modified accordingly.

Travel and Visits:

Garry Voss, Culham Labs, visited last week and gave a talk on the
assembly of the MAST spherical tokamak and the application of feltmetal
to that project.

Gerd Schilling and Randy Wilson visited from PPPL to discuss physics
plans as part of the follow-up to the Ideas Forum.  The status of the
PPPL antenna was also discussed.

Martin Greenwald attended a meeting of the european transport
task force in Goteborg, Sweden.  The meeting was attended by 75-80 researchers.
Major topics covered were:  core transport scalings, stellarator, RFP,
tokamak comparisons, fluctuations, transient transports, improved
confinement regimes, and edge/core interactions.