Alcator C-Mod Weekly Highlights March 12, 2007 FY2007 weeks of research operations: tentative target: 15 weeks Completed: 0 weeks Planning Meeting ---------------- The C-Mod Experimental Program Committee met on Friday, Mar 9, to consider Miniproposals for experiments to be carried out during C-Mod Startup and Conditioning operation, which begins this week. Six MP's were approved for scheduling during this period, and one additional Miniproposal was accepted for possible scheduling during the subsequent Research Operations period. Operations ---------- The C-Mod vessel bake and electron cyclotron discharge cleaning continued until Sunday morning when the vessel temperature was dropped back down to 60 C. The magnets were then cooled down to their standby levels of -125C for the toroidal field magnet and -75C for ohmic heating and poloidal fields magnets. On Monday morning all magnets were cooled down to the operating temperature of -190 C so that startup power system tests could begin. New programmable logic controller to PC software was installed during the up-to-air for nearly all engineering systems. All magnet system controllers were checked last week for proper fault and limit condition operation. The MIT alternator is ready for operation. Lower Hybrid System ------------------- All jungle gym couplers that measure power flowing into the lower hybrid launcher have been calibrated and the data stored in the MDSPlus tree along with the coupler protection system intermediate coupler diode calibrations. Spurious faults in the lower hybrid solid state crowbar system have delayed phase and amplitude calibrations that are needed to begin operation of the lower hybrid system. Debugging of this system continued over the weekend. Long Pulse Diagnostic Neutral Beam ---------------------------------- The diagnostic neutral beam liquid nitrogen fill system is now operational and has been used to fill the cryo pumps. The liquid helium fill valves have been removed and lubricated, re-installed and adjusted for correct open and closed position indication. A small leak in the source end cryopump is being repaired before conditioning activities resume. ICRF Systems ------------ Work continued last week on the transmitter crowbar systems and 13.8 kV breakers. The upgraded control and data acquisition systems are ready for operation. Diagnostics ----------- Many diagnostics are coming back on-line in preparation for plasma operation. The two color interferometer, magnetics, BES, FRC-ECE, H/D, Hirex Jr, and visible bremsstrahlung diagnostics are all on-line. Many others will be coming back on-line during the next two weeks as we condition the machine for high performance operation. A new web page documenting the availability of C-Mod systems can be found at https://www.psfc.mit.edu/research/alcator/facility/system_availability/index.php Travel and Visits ----------------- This week Stewart Zweben, PPPL, was at MIT and working with Jim Terry completed the installation of the ex-vessel hardware and computer control for the new divertor GPI camera. The optical alignment is in progress and camera operation may be tested with plasmas next week. Randy Wilson, PPPL, was at MIT on Tuesday and Wednesday morning to discuss plans for the initial LH operations and experiments. He discussed with Dave Terry what needed to be done into plasma to re-commission the controls and CPS, and with Ron Parker, Andrea Schmidt, Greg Wallace and Miklos Porkolab what experiments could be done in the pre-physics phase. Amanda Hubbard attended an APS-sponsored workshop in Denver, CO held in conjunction with the APS March meeting. _______________________________________________ Cmod_weekly mailing list Cmod_weekly@lists.psfc.mit.edu http://lists.psfc.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/cmod_weekly