Alcator C-Mod Weekly Highlights October 4, 2004 FY 2005 weeks of operation planned: 14 weeks, completed: 0 weeks. We are currently up-to-air with the primary goal of installing the lower hybrid launcher. In addition, a large number of in-vessel activities are ongoing in support of ICRF and diagnostic systems. Maintenance and upgrades to diagnostic and power systems are also in progress. Physics ------- The Fiscal Year 2004 Level 1 DoE JOULE Target SC6-1b, Compare energy confinement, H-Mode thresholds, and divertor particle dynamics in Alcator C-Mod discharges, was completed on schedule. A detailed Target Completion Report was submitted to OFES on Sept 28. All FY2004 C-Mod Level 1 targets have been completed on schedule. Jim Terry, Martin Greenwald, Peter Catto, and Amanda Hubbard, participated remotely in an Edge Coordinating Committee planning and organizational meeting held at General Atomics, Sept 27-28. Operations ---------- Eight tungsten brush tiles returned last week from the final machining operation and are being cleaned in preparation for baking and assembly. Eight new linux workstations have been installed in the control room and all of the C-Mod workstations (43) have been upgraded to RedHat Enterprise 3.0 WS edition. This upgrade should provide a supported and more stable operating system. The systems are now subscribed to an automatic updating services which should apply bug fixes and security patches in a timely fashion. We continued filtering and testing the MIT Alternator and flywheel lubrication oil last week. A smaller mesh filter will be used to finish cleanup of the oil. Only very small trace amounts of metallic particulates have been found. The finer filter will remove small (<5 um) silt or clay-like particles. Lower Hybrid System ------------------- Preparations for brazing the #3 PPPL coupler were nearly completed last week. The coupler has been carefully cleaned and all but six ceramic windows have been fit into the channels. We expect to braze this coupler early this week. Work continues on the launcher rwg rf probes. The test fixture for the probes was fabricated last week. Probe housing for the front probes have also been fabricated. Cabling for the probes is on order. ICRF System ----------- Invessel assembly of the J-Port antenna continued last week. Installation of the rf bypass capacitors and the Faraday screen remain to be completed. Work on the FPA crowbar protection circuit continued for FMIT#1. A spare chassis is almost complete. The crowbar circuit is being repackaged to improve our ability to see status indicators without opening the crowbar cabinet. We plan to make similar mods to the FMIT#2 crowbar as soon as FMIT#1 mods are in-place and tested. Diagnostics ----------- The mount of the new TCI CO2 laser has been installed. Water cooling and power connections to the laser should be completed this week. Long term stability measurements on the laser will begin as soon as these connections are made. The repackaged TCI AGC amplifiers with monitor signals for all channels have been re-installed in the TCI rack. New density feedback boards with a larger counter range have been designed and the PC board layout completed. Limiter amplifiers for the polarimeter prototype are being developed. The PC boards are in-house, and components are on order for narrow band input filters. One of the diagnostic labs is being prepared as a polarimeter development area. We continue to develop software and hardware for firewire based cameras for viewing C-Mod antennas, the lower divertor, and the lower hybrid grill and limiter. Tests of acceptable cable lengths between the control boards and the camera head are ongoing. Travel and Visits ----------------- Nils Basse gave the Friday Plasma Physics Colloquium at Columbia University last week on "Turbulence in Tokamaks and Stellarators". _______________________________________________ Cmod_weekly mailing list Cmod_weekly@lists.psfc.mit.edu http://lists.psfc.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/cmod_weekly