Alcator C-Mod Quarterly
Progress Report – FY09 Q2
The main activities at Alcator C-Mod during the second quarter of FY09 were a completion of the magnet inspection, continuation of the alternator inspection and the start of reassembly of the tokamak.
. Publications
2009 Nucl. Fusion 49 025004
Reviews Program Advisory Committee Meeting The 2009 C-Mod PAC meeting was held at MIT from Feb 4 to Feb 6. On the committee this year were Rich Hawryluk (PPPL), Chair, Richard Fitzpatrick (U. TX.), Yutaka Kamada (JAEA), Steve Knowlton (Auburn U.), Alberto Loarte (ITER), Craig Petty (GA), George Sips (EFDA/JET), PaulTerry (U. Wisc.), and Rostom Dagazian (OFES, ex-officio). The PAC was asked to provide advice on our overall programmatic priorities and objectives, in the context of C-Mod's place in the national and international fusion program, including considerations of priority R&D needs for ITER. We will emphasize near term research forFY2009, plans for the FY2010 and FY2011 campaigns, and facility and diagnostic upgrade plans through 2013. Presentations on physics and facility results and plans were made by the C-Mod team on Feb 4th and 5th. Links to the agenda and the presentations may be found athttp://www.psfc.mit.edu/research/alcator/pubs/Cmod_PAC_2009.html
OFES Quarterly Review On Thursday, Feb 5, we held a C-Mod quarterly review. In attendance were Rostom Dagazian, Earl Marmar, Miklos Porkolab and Jim Irby. Since we had just completed more than 7 hours of presentations to the Program Advisory Committee on C-Mod status and plans, there were no additional presentations associated with the review. Topics discussed included near term incremental budget priorities, and the schedule for resumption of C-Mod operations.
Amanda Hubbard participated in the FESAC meeting held in Gaithersburg, Maryland on Jan 13th.
Sam Pierson and Steve Wukitch visited our vendor in Huntsville AL to discuss the process for coating of molybdenum tiles (outer divertor shelf, limiter, and RF limiters) and schedule.
Dennis Whyte visited Los Alamos National Laboratory the week of Jan. 26 to present a colloquium on "PSI issues in ITER & Beyond", as well as tour the LANL ion beam and tritium recovery facilities. He also visited San Diego to discuss details of the OFES FY2009 joint facility milestone on fuel retention with members of the DIII-D staff.
John Rice attended the DIII-D PAC meeting in San Diego from 2/10 to 2/12.
John Rice gave the Columbia University Plasma Physics Colloquium on 'Spontaneous and RF Driven Rotation' on February 27th.
Catherine Fiore, Brian LaBombard, Amanda Hubbard, Dennis Whyte, and Jim Irby attended ReNew Theme III and IV Workshops at UCLA the week of March 2. Theme III focused on the Plasma Material Interface (PMI), while Theme IV was concerned with harnessing Fusion Power (FP). Dennis Whyte gave talks on "An Energy Sustainment Science Mission" and "Taming PMI – Energy Sustainment". Brian LaBombard gave a presentation on "Towards Building a Credible Vision for DEMO --- Edge Transport". Brian LaBombard serves on the Plasma Wall Interaction panel and Jim Irby is on the Internal Components panel.
A. Dominguez visited PPPL from March 2 to 6 to work with G. Kramer and C. Kung on the 130/140 GHz correlation reflectometer for C-Mod.
Earl Marmar visited Columbia University March 13, where he gave the Plasma Physics Colloquium on Recent Results and Plans for Alcator C-Mod. He also had discussions with Mike Mauel, Amiya Sen and Thomas Pedersen.
Bruce Lipschultz attended the FOM/Rijnhuizen laboratory advisory committee meeting January 12-13 in Utrecht, Holland. Bruce Lipschultz traveled to Cadarache, France to participate in a Fusion for Energy meeting from February 16 to 17 on ITER operation with an all-tungsten divertor. Syun'ichi Shiraiwa participated in the US-Korea-Japan rf workshop held in Toki, Japan the week of Mar.16.
Paul Bonoli and John Rice attended the Integrated Operation Scenarios (IOS) and Transport and Confinement (TC) ITPA meetings in Naka, Japan the week of March 31.