Alcator C-Mod Weekly Highlights February 21, 2003 On February 20 and 21 a meeting of the Alcator C-Mod Program Advisory Committee was held at MIT. Work continued invessel on diagnostics and instrumentation. Fabrication and installation of control coils also continued. Work on the lower hybrid launcher is proceeding well at PPPL. Physics ------- A meeting of the Alcator C-Mod Program Advisory Committee was held at MIT on Thursday and Friday of this week. The committee members are: Vincent Chan (GA), Tony Leonard (GA), Dick Majeski (PPPL), Mike Mauel (Columbia, chair), John Sarff (U. Wisc), Alan Sykes (UKAEA), Yuichi Takase (U. Tokyo), and George Tynan (UCSD). All eight members of the committee attended the meeting. Rostom Dagazian attended from DoE. Presentations were given by the Alcator C-Mod Group on the current status of our research and plans for the next five years. These presentations can be found at http://www.psfc.mit.edu/cmod/sciprogram/Cmod_PAC_2003.html The committee was asked to provide feedback and guidance on our proposed five year program, including the goals and priorities, in the context of C-Mod's place in the national and international magnetic fusion programs. They were also asked to provide feedback on how best to present our program in light of our upcoming review. Following the presentations, the committee gave their initial verbal feedback to the group. Written recommendations will be given to Miklos Porkolab and Ian Hutchinson shortly. Operations ---------- The invessel E-Port antenna installation is complete except for the BN tiles which will be installed just before pumpdown. The new J-Port antenna back plate has been machined and has been sent out for plating. Five of the eight control coils are complete. Winding has begun on the sixth. Documentation of the power supply and the in cell connections for the new control coils is underway. All materials are in house for the control coil patch panels with fabrication to begin soon. Lower Hybrid MIE Project ------------------------ By this Friday, all major components for the LHCD launcher had been been received at PPPL. Recent deliveries included all high power phase shifters, rear waveguide assemblies, and standard waveguide component loops. The last component (protective tile assembly) will be delivered the first week of March. Work is progressing on installing the launcher vacuum assembly on the vacuum test stand. Vacuum testing is expected to be performed early March. RF testing of the rear waveguide assembly will begin next week. At MIT, the dummy load has been brought back online and 50 kV tests of the HVPS and crowbar were completed successfully. Some overcurrent trips have been detected and are being debugged. Work on the fixture to mount the first circulator is well underway. The ethernet fiber optic lines to the three cart equipment racks are operational. The data acquisition racks will be installed within the next few days. Work also continued on the active controller software. Details of the Lower Hybrid CAMAC timing system are being worked out. IDL programs for the operator interface to the timing system are being developed. Parts of the DNB timing program will be used as a model for this system. Don Patterson, UT, who developed the DNB software is helping out with this process. Travel and Visits ----------------- Ned Sauthoff and Gerd Schilling, both from PPPL, attended the C-Mod PAC meeting. Gerd Schilling presented the PPPL collaboration's contributions to the C-Mod program and participated in programmatic discussions. Bill Rowan, UT, was also at MIT this week and attended the PAC meeting.