Alcator C-Mod Quarterly
Progress Report – FY08 Q4
The main activity at Alcator C-Mod during the fourth quarter of FY08 was the scheduled inspection of the alternator and toroidal field magnet.
The FY08 3'rd quarter C-Mod DoE review was held by video-conference on Wednesday, August 13. Attendees included: Earl Marmar, Jim Irby, Steve Wukitch, Yijun Lin, Bob Granetz, Ian Hutchinson, David Terry, Lihua Zhou, and Francesca Bombarda at MIT; Rostom Dagazian, Curt Bolton and T.V. George at OFES; Bill Rowan, Perry Phillips, and Igor Bespamyatnov at U. Texas, Austin. Links to the viewgraphs from the presentations can be found at: http://www.psfc.mit.edu/research/alcator/pubs/quarterlies.html
On September 9th a successful final design review of the new lower hybrid launcher was held at MIT. Steve Knowlton, Auburn University, and Douglas Loesser, PPPL, comprised the external review panel. After a welcome by Earl Marmar, Ron Parker, Randy Wilson (PPPL), Peter Koert, Rui Vieira, Jeff Doody, Orso Meneghini, and Jim Irby gave presentations. These may be found at http://www.psfc.mit.edu/research/alcator/data/launcher_review_.pdf
Martin Greenwald traveled to Dallas, Texas to attend a meeting of the FESAC panel on alternate concepts the week of July 1.
Earl Marmar traveled to the Washington D.C. and on July 23 he gave a presentation to the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences in Germantown, MD, entitled "Alcator C-Mod Highlights and Plans", and had additional discussions with Ray Fonck and Rostom Dagazian. Ian Hutchinson and Earl Marmar attended the APS-DPP program committee sorters' meeting in College Park, MD, the week of July 21, where they participated in planning for the 2008 conference. Bruce Lipschultz attended the US Plasma Facing Components meeting in Albuquerque on July 22. He presented a review of C-Mod research and plans in this area. In addition, he presented a review of ITPA efforts on SOL physics and plasma-surface interaction.
David Terry traveled to PPPL the week of July 28 to serve as a member of the review team for the DOE Facility and Operations Review of NSTX. He was also present for the DOE NSTX Five Year Plan Review debriefing.
Dave Gwinn traveled to PPPL to discuss modifications to the MSE collection optics with engineers there. Miklos Porkolab attended the ITER USA Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) meeting on August 13, 14 in Oak Ridge. The TAC heard a set of presentations on recent activities by the Home Team, including related BPO activities.
Several of our engineers attended the 18th Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy in San Francisco, CA from September 28 to October 2, and presented posters on engineering systems developed or being developed for C-Mod: Engineering Considerations in the Implementation of High Power Fast Ferrite Tuners on Alcator C-Mod, Alan S. Binus Disruption Load Calculations for Lower Hybrid Current Drive Couplers, Jeffrey Doody Transmitter Protection System Upgrade Design for Lower Hybrid Current Drive System on Alcator C-Mod, David R. Terry (presented by Pat MacGibbon) Waveguide Splitters for Lower Hybrid Current Drive, Pete Koert Conceptual Design of a New Outer Divertor for C-Mod, Peter Titus
Bruce Lipschultz attended the ITPA Coordinating Committee meeting held in Aix en Provence, France for 2 days, June 30-July 1. He represented the ITPA SOL/Divertor group, reporting on the activities of the past year.
Dennis Whyte and Robert Granetz traveled to Cadarache, France, to attend an ITER Workshop on suppression of runaway electrons in ITER. They presented new experimental and modeling results on runaway transport and confinement from C-Mod and participated in the discussions of specifications required for disruption mitigation and runaway suppression in ITER.
The week of July 21, Ron Parker attended the 3rd meeting of the European Fusion Facilities Review Panel in Brussels.
Bruce Lipschultz and Dennis Whyte traveled to Nagasaki Japan for an ITPA meeting on SOL/divertor physics. The meeting was held over the period Sept 15 to 18.
From September 23 to 24, Ron Parker attended the 4th and last meeting of the European Facilities Review Panel in Brussels.
A draft schedule for the FY08 run period can be found at
http://www.psfc.mit.edu/research/alcator/facility/Operations/operation_schedule.pdf