Alcator C-Mod Weekly Highlights Jan 23, 2006 FY2006 weeks of research operations: Planned: 14 weeks Completed: 4 weeks Operations ---------- Alcator C-Mod was pumped down on Thursday of last week. On Friday liquid nitrogen was introduced into the sump and the cooling of the magnets and superstructure began. The heater system is maintaining the vessel at 60C. Following a final leak-check early this week, a 120C bake will begin. Physics ------- On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week the 2006 PAC meeting will be held at MIT. On the committee this year are Rich Groebner (chair), GA, Chuck Kessel, PPPL, Brian Lloyd, UKAEA Culham, Dale Meade, PPPL, Mike Ulrickson, Sandia, Jim Van Dam, U. Texas, and Dennis Whyte, U. of Wisconsin. Yuichi Takase, University of Tokyo, who is also on the committee, will be unable to attend. The charge to the committee is to provide guidance on our proposed program in light of high priority R&D needs for ITER, and to provide advice on our overall programmatic priorities and objectives, in the context of C-Mod's place in the national and international fusion program. Lower Hybrid System ------------------- The lower hybrid coupler thermocouple instrumentation is now reporting to the lower hybrid control PC. This set of TCs will be monitored during the vessel bake and also during ECDC and tokamak plasma operation. We continue to compile calibration data for the phase and amplitude control system and move this data into the tree. New scopes are being developed to display power and phase information. Work that needed to be done before re-installation of the microwave components on the launcher could begin was completed last weekend. Re-installation of the components will begin following a final successful leak-check of the launcher. ICRF Systems ------------ Characterization of the fast ferrite tuner prototype continued last week. Specifications for a new power supply to drive the tuner magnets are being developed, and vendors for the supplies are being consulted. Layouts of the tuner components in the cell are being considered. The fast ferrite system will be used to tune the E-Port antenna. Long Pulse DNB -------------- A design error in the the high voltage power supply for the long pulse DNB has caused the loss of several IGBT modules and a fuse. The vendor's power engineer has been consulted, and he has confirmed a problem with the design. We are working with the engineer to develop a new configuration for the fuse network. Work on the DNB long pulse interlock continued with installation of interlock components in the TCI cabinet and some modifications to the main DNB interlock rack. Diagnostics ----------- Development of a driver for an ultrasonic transducer needed to calibrate the PCI diagnostic has been completed and is undergoing acceptance testing. This system will generate 200 KHz sound waves of a know amplitude that are observable by the PCI system. Travel and Visits ----------------- Bruce Lipschultz was in China and served as co-chair for the 7th ITPA SOL/div meeting on January 9-12. He gave four talks covering radial transport, flows, plasma startup, and boronization. In addition, he presented a talk prepared by Dennis Whyte on deuterium retention on the sides of tiles (surfaces not directly facing the plasma). _______________________________________________ Cmod_weekly mailing list Cmod_weekly@lists.psfc.mit.edu http://lists.psfc.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/cmod_weekly