Alcator C-Mod Weekly Highlights January 24, 2005 FY 2005 weeks of research operation planned: 14 weeks, completed: 0 weeks. The Alcator C-Mod vacuum vessel is being baked in preparation for plasma operation. The MIT alternator, power supplies, and C-Mod diagnostic systems are also being prepared for operation. Physics ------- The first Experimental Planning Committee (EPC) meeting for the next run campaign was held last Friday. Twelve mini-proposals were considered at this meeting, which concentrated on MPs that could be run early in the campaign, particularly those not requiring boronization. Operations ---------- Following extensive leak checks early last week, we began a 120 C bake of the vessel on Thursday. To protect the magnets during the bake, liquid nitrogen was introduced into the cryostat, and the magnets and structure cooled down to -25 C. We expect the bake to continue into the middle of this week. Electron cyclotron discharge cleaning (ECDC) will begin early this week and continue until plasma operation begins. The TF gate drive boards for two out of the four TF converters have been tested and are ready for operation. The two backup diesel generators that supply C-Mod critical systems with power during utility power failures have been inspected, refurbished, and brought back on-line. We continued to bring new CPCI chassis on-line for the alternator, bus instrumentation, and long pulse data acquisition systems. Lower Hybrid System ------------------- Phase calibrations of the Lower Hybrid launcher rear waveguide (rwg) and its feeds were completed last week. This information will be used by the phase and amplitude control system to control the launcher spectrum. We continued bringing the transmitter protection (TPS), coupler protection (CPS), and phase and amplitude control system on-line last week. Cabling is being run to the rwg. Rf boards have been checked out in the CPS system and are now being modified before final installation. Work continued on the rf probes for the rwg. Boards and chassis for the probes have been fabricated, and most of the probes have been assembled. A system to hold the probes in place is being developed that will allow calibrations to be maintained for extensive periods of time. Following installation of the rf probes, the fwg and rwg will be joined. Waveguide runs from the klystrons to the rwg are being installed. The lower hybrid PLC system was brought on line and is being used to monitor launcher temperatures during the vacuum bake. ICRF System ----------- The D and E-Port antenna coaxial feed networks have been assembled in the cell. Work has begun on the J-Port network. Work continued on the FMIT transmitters. Diagnostics ----------- Upgrades have been performed to the CXRS spectrometer and detector. The adaptor between the array detector and the spectrometer was modified to allow more flexibility in the spatial adjustment of the detector. This change allows the detector to be used to view the full compliment of 45 input fibers, while also improving the ability to focus the spectrum from each of these fibers. The diagnostic can view a maximum of 45 spatial channels (up from 28). The data acquisition system for CXRS was fully tested. Travel and Visits ----------------- Alex Graf, a graduate student from UC-Davis, arrived for a long term visit. Alex is working with Mark May (LLNL) on a collaboration to measure edge impurity dynamics using a new spectroscopic diagnostic designed and built at Livermore. Details can be found at http://www.psfc.mit.edu/cmod/sciprogram/APS/aps2004/Graf.pdf Bill Rowan, UT-FRC, was at MIT last week to make modifications to the CXRS spectrometer/detector. Randy Wilson and Nevell Greenough, PPPL, visited all last week directing phase calibrations of the lower hybrid launcher rear waveguide and its feeds. Martin Greenwald was in Washington DC for the ESnet steering committee meeting last Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday he was in Princeton for the NSTX PAC meeting. Joseph Snipes participated in the conceptual design review of the MAST TAE antennas on 19 January in a teleconference to Culham Laboratory. MAST is designing a toroidal array of twelve in-vessel TAE coils. _______________________________________________ Cmod_weekly mailing list Cmod_weekly@lists.psfc.mit.edu http://lists.psfc.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/cmod_weekly