Alcator C-Mod Weekly Highlights July 18, 2011 FY2011 weeks of research operations Target: 15 weeks Completed: 14.5 weeks Plasma Shots: 1706 Physics ------- A total of 60 C-Mod related abstracts were submitted last week for the 53rd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics by MIT personnel and collaborators including 6 invited, 36 poster, and 18 oral presentations. Operations ---------- Maintenance work on alternator systems continued last week. The alternator drive system 4160 Volt AC circuit breaker was removed from its cubicle and serviced. The breaker was found to be in very good condition. The breaker was inspected, cleaned, manually operated, and then reinstalled into its cubicle. Plans are being developed to inspect and service the two grates on the Charles river that prevent large debris from entering the supply and discharge tunnels that supply water for our primary alternator cooling loop. ICRF Systems ------------ We have received seven additional plated components for the ARRA funded rotated antenna, and Bill Beck visited the vendor last week to verify the plating procedure on a number of other pieces. The diagnostic probes for the antenna have been designed and RFQs issued. The boron carbide washers have arrived and await bake out. The first bellows to tube joint has been welded successfully, and preparations are being made to complete the other assembles. Lower Hybrid System ------------------- Ferrite samples for the LHCD FFT have been sent to a vendor for metal coating. Work on the Transmitter Protection System (TPS) continues. CPCI chassis installation has started on carts 1-3. Cable designs for the HV control box are complete and awaiting connector delivery. Fabrication is underway in-house on five I/O and interface CPLD boards. The hardware components for the Ethernet distribution system required for the new TPS upgrade control boards and digitizers were received and have been mounted. A fiber optic to relay interface was designed to be used for remote booting of the new TPS and digitizer systems. Our vendor visited last week to discuss the filament power supply system he is fabricating for the four carts. He inspected the carts and equipment racks, and we had discussions on testing and installation procedures. Pat MacGibbon will travel the first week of August to do the final acceptance testing of the system. The LH3 controller design specifications document is nearly complete. The final document will be sent to our vendor with a request for a proposal for a turnkey system. Remote Participation, Travel, and Visitors ------------------------------------------ Paul Bonoli and John Wright attended the 2011 Scientific Discovery Through Advanced Computing Conference that was held in Denver, CO from July 10-14, 2011. John gave an invited talk at this conference titled "Time Dependent Evolution of RF-generated Non-Thermal Particle Distributions in Fusion Plasmas". Dennis Whyte attended the Fusion Nuclear Science Pathway Assessment meeting in Washington DC and presented a summary of R&D requirements for the configuration of plasma-facing components. Anne White was at UCLA last week (7/13-7/15) meeting with Tony Peebles and the Plasma Diagnostic Group to present current progress on the Alcator C-Mod Correlation ECE diagnostic and to discuss ideas for new mm-wave turbulence measurements and experiments at Alcator C-Mod. _______________________________________________ Cmod_weekly mailing list Cmod_weekly@lists.psfc.mit.edu http://lists.psfc.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/cmod_weekly