Alcator C-Mod Weekly Highlights
                 June 22, 2009
                   

FY2009 weeks of research operations:
  Target: TBD
  Completed:  0 weeks


Operations
----------

Our vendor arrived on Monday morning to record alternator bearing
vibration levels during spin up of the rotor and determine if
re-balancing of the rotor would be required.  All vibrations levels were
low, and the vendor's engineers determined that no re-balancing of the
rotor was necessary.  On Thursday and Friday the alternator supported
C-Mod startup operations.

We continued to bake the vessel and clean the walls using electron
cyclotron discharge cleaning (ECDC) from Monday to Thursday morning of
last week.  On Thursday the magnets were cooled down to liquid nitrogen
temperature for the first time since the inspection, and a final high
voltage test of the coils was successfully completed at operating
temperature.  Emergency stop, over voltage interlocks, and high voltage
switching hardware were also tested.  On Friday all magnets except the
TF were operated successfully while also providing fields needed to
check out and debug our magnetics diagnostics and plasma control system.
Problems with the scanner needed to monitor the feltmetal joint
resistances delayed testing of the TF.  We will continue bringing C-Mod
back into operation this week.

On Saturday, an up-to-helium was performed to replace an in-line vacuum
valve on the A-Port scanning probe diagnostic, and repair a leak on a
K-Bottom 10" flange.  ECDC and the bake resumed following pump-down on
Saturday afternoon.


ICRF Systems
------------

We continued to prepare the transmitters and transmission line systems
for plasma operation.  A reconditioned final amplifier tube (FPA) has
been successfully installed in FMIT#1, and FMIT#3 has been prepared for
installation of a new FPA.  Initial operation will be at 78 MHz.


Lower Hybrid Systems
--------------------

We continued fabrication of the new launcher.  An area in the lower
hybrid lab has been prepared where the assembly of the launcher will
take place, and test fitups of components have begun.  Work also
continued on the Coupler Protection System Upgrade software.


Travel and Visits
-----------------

Tom Fredian and Josh Stillerman attended the 7th IAEA Technical Meeting
(IAEA-TM) on Control, Data Acquisition, and Remote Participation for
Fusion Research held in Aix en Provence, France. Both presented papers
and lead an MDSplus satellite meeting.

Bill Rowan, Ken Liao, Perry Phillips and Igor Bespamyatnov, UT-FRC, were
at MIT last week to prepare the WideView CXRS and FRCECE diagnostics for
operation.

David Mikkelsen, PPPL, visited MIT to discuss the feasibility of
measuring the H/D ratio in the core of C-Mod plasmas. The goal is to
determine experimentally whether H and D are transported differently in
low-collisionality H-mode plasmas with peaked electron density profiles.

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