Alcator C-Mod Weekly Highlights December 18, 2006 FY2007 weeks of research operations: tentative target: 15 weeks Completed: 0 weeks Physics ------- The 2007 Alcator C-Mod Ideas Forum was held from December 13 to 15. A total of 145 proposals for research on C-Mod were presented. Contributors included 36 members of the MIT community, as well as 20 individuals from collaborating institutions, including PPPL, U. Texas, General Atomics, ORNL, UC-Davis, U. Wisconsin, U. Toronto, NYU, UKAEA and IPP-Garching. The presented ideas will help inform the planning of the upcoming C-Mod run campaign. For reference, the submitted presentations can be found on-line at: http://www.psfc.mit.edu/cmod/sciprogram/ideas2007/agenda_mirror/ideas_forum_agenda.htm Leaders of specific task force areas will be organizing meetings in the coming weeks to evaluate and prioritize the proposed ideas. Announcements of these meetings will be sent to the Ideas Forum e-mail list, of which all current Forum participants are members. Other interested parties may add themselves to this mailing list by visiting the following web page: http://lists.psfc.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ideas_forum Operations ---------- Work on installation of the toroidally rotated long pulse diagnostic neutral beam continued last week. The support fixture needed to install the modified F-Port horizontal flange for the beam and diagnostics has been prepared, and the flange is due to be installed sometime this week. The DNB high voltage racks have been moved back into the cell and new cabling is being fabricated. Work continues on the GN2 ductwork and LN2 feedlines. Preparations are being made for installation of LN2 piping needed for the cryopump. We are continuing work on the magnet power supply preventative maintenance tasks. Testing of the TF power supply bypass cabinet will begin this week and will include testing of gate drives, over-voltage protection system, conduction monitors and feedback circuit, and type 1 and type 2 fault protection. Cryopump -------- The cryopump was taken in-vessel last week for a successful full fit-up. Installation of the cryopump will proceed as soon as diagnostic related installations that require access to the inner wall and upper chamber are complete. Lower Hybrid System ------------------- High power testing has begun of the E-Plane launcher waveguide prototype. This assembly is fabricated with a cut in the E-Plane rather than the H-Plane as found in the the current launcher. Simulations and low power tests indicate better performance can be obtained with the E-Plane geometry in terms of both losses and arc prevention. The tapers expected to be needed for the new launcher are also incorporated in the prototype. Work continued on the klystron test stand including the addition of a new inductor to improve the pulse response, and design and fabrication of the PLC hardware and software. ICRF Systems ------------ ICRF-related work in the hi-yard is complete. Breakers have been cycle tested and Ross bottles have been hi-potted successfully. Travel and Visits ----------------- Dennis Whyte attended the DIII-D Boundary Workshop (Dec. 11-12) which was to brainstorm ideas for DIII-D edge research for the next 5 year plan. He presented five talks on ideas for ELM control, tritium/fuel recovery and heat flux control, with emphasis on possibilities for cross-device comparisons with C-Mod. Marco Ferrara attended the IEEE Control Design Conference in San Diego 12/12 - 12/15 and the pre-conference workshop at GA on 12/11. The workshop was meant to gather people working on various problems of tokamak control. His presentations were on the quantification of measurement noise from various sources, and its effects on the controllability of the vertical position of elongated (open-loop unstable) plasmas. Seung-Hoe Ku, CIMS-NYU, visited last week and presented a proposal on behalf of C.S. Chang on the use of the newest version of the XGC code to simulate generation of toroidal rotation in the plasma edge. _______________________________________________ Cmod_weekly mailing list Cmod_weekly@lists.psfc.mit.edu http://lists.psfc.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/cmod_weekly