Alcator C-Mod Run 1050210 Information

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Miniproposals
Miniproposal:298a
Date Filed: 5/20/2002
Title:C-Mod Plasma Startup
First Author:Jim Irby
Session Leader:Jim Irby (shots 1-17)
Miniproposal:399
Date Filed: 1/11/2005
Title:Initial Operation Using Digital Plasma Control System
First Author:Marco Ferrara
Session Leader:Marco Ferrara (shots 18-25)

Operators
Session leader(s):Jim Irby,Marco Ferrara
Physics operator(s):Earl Marmar
Engineering operator(s):Gary Dekow,Bill Byford

Engineering Operator Run Comment
MP 298A C-Mod Plasma Startup SL: Irby, PO: , EO: Pierson

Session Leader Plans
Entered: Feb 10 2005 08:26:23:113AM
Author: Jim Irby
Continue conditioning machine.

Startup from 1050209021

Run inner wall limited discharges followed by discharges that sweep from lower null to upper null.

Monitor h/d, radiation, etc.

Enable toggling of gatevalves --- GV1 should be manually closed at the beginning of INIT

Entered: Feb 10 2005 11:47:37:000AM
Author: Marco Ferrara
During the second half of the run, we'll be using the Digital Plasma Control System (DPCS) with the following goals:
1) Reduce DPCS cycle rate until problems with position control appear. This allows us to determine the maximum
cycle time and headroom for extra computation;
2) Increase DPCS cycle rate to the point at which samples are lost and verify that plasma control with the current
implementation of DPCS is robust against lost samples

Physics Operators Plans

Session Leader Summaries
Entered: Feb 10 2005 07:11:49:990PM
Author: Marco Ferrara
Shot 1050210021 run at 10kHz: successful control of a rather unstable plasma.
Shot 1050210022 run at 5kHz: successful control of the plasma. Z trace looks much similar to 021.
Shot 1050210023 run at 2.5kHz: Lost control and disruption. Interesting z traces show the typical exponentially growing instability.
Shots 024 and 025 were run at 300us, but resulted in fizzles.

DPCS managed to control the plasma down to 200us cycle time. Which means we have at least an additional 100 us for computation for similar sorts of plasmas.

The cycle time is now back at 100us.
Entered: Feb 11 2005 10:23:37:637AM
Author: Jim Irby
We continued the vessel cleanup today by running a couple of inner wall
limited plasmas (shots 13 and 14). Density, ciii, halpha, h/d all went up.

Still have not reached wall conditions in which gas puffing is required to
maintain the density above 5e19.

We did not have time to sweep from SNL to SNU.

Physics Operator Summaries
Entered: Feb 10 2005 07:16:22:030PM
Author: Earl Marmar
Plan:
During the first half of the run we will complete the MP298a cleanup tasks including inner wall limited
and upper null cases. We will complete MP399 during the remainder of the run (checkout of DPCS).

Results:
Got some of the plan accomplished. We ran a number of LSN shots with sweeps, most with no segment 2 gas puff.
Then we ran a few inner-wall limited shots, including 1 at 1.0 MA that disrupted at the end of flattop
(power supplies reached limits).

The DPCS part of the run had the last part of the run, getting three good discharges, including shot 23 where
the VDE appeared to be caused by loss of control due to the purposeful slowing of the DPCS cycle time.

Disruptions were all followed by fizzles. The main attempt to help this was to dramatically decrease the prefill
pressure. By the end of the run, it was down to 11 ms. Nevertheless, the last 2 shots fizzled.

Summary:
14 Plasmas
10 fizzles
1 no power cycle (communication failure right before pulse)

Session Leader Comments
Feb 10 2005 04:07:14:100PM1050210013Jim IrbyDensity, halpha, pressure, cii, all up as we moved plasma near innner wall.


Feb 10 2005 04:21:26:763PM1050210014Jim IrbyEarl claims solid inner wall limited plasma

higher density, ciii, etc, rise than shot 13. A little more gas
evolved.

h/(h+d) actually down from shot 13 to 42%

Feb 10 2005 06:18:46:617PM1050210018Marco FerraraShot run at 10kHz DPCS cycle rate. fizzle.
Feb 10 2005 06:22:02:967PM1050210019Marco FerraraShot run at 10kHz DPCS cycle rate. Early disruption at 1.3s.
Feb 10 2005 06:22:20:847PM1050210020Marco FerraraShot run at 10kHz DPCS cycle rate. Fizzle.
Feb 10 2005 06:23:13:143PM1050210021Marco FerraraShot run at 10kHz DPCS cycle rate. Full plasma, with a growing vertical instability.
Feb 10 2005 06:28:12:100PM1050210022Marco FerraraShot run at 5kHz DPCS cycle rate. Full plasma, very similar to 021 as far as vertical control.
Feb 10 2005 06:44:41:503PM1050210023Marco FerraraShot run at 2.5kHz DPCS cycle rate. Lost vertical control. Very nice z traces exponentially diverging at 0.56s.
Feb 10 2005 06:50:03:513PM1050210024Marco FerraraShot run at 3.3kHz DPCS cycle rate. fizzle.
Feb 10 2005 07:05:39:233PM1050210025Marco FerraraShot run at 3.3kHz DPCS cycle rate. fizzle.

Physics Operator Comments
Feb 10 2005 11:41:33:737AMEarl MarmarDuring the first half of the run we will complete the MP298a cleanup tasks including inner wall limited
and upper null cases. We will complete MP399 during the remainder of the run (checkout of DPCS).
Feb 10 2005 12:33:32:440PM1050210001Earl Marmarload segment 1 from first good shot yesterday (1050209004)
load segment 2 from last shot yesterday (1050209021)
remove a-coil program points after 2.5 seconds to reduce amount of data stored
turn nl_04 demand down to 2.3e19, to see what happens without any gas puff in segment 2; voltage demand for PG3
was already 0

plasma
good l-mode shot (H89 close to 1 throughout)
H/(H+D) ~ .18
Feb 10 2005 12:45:13:473PM1050210002Earl Marmartweak EFC segment 2 voltage command (to 0 from 100 volts) (Wolfe suggestion)
no other pcs changes

plasma
EFC looks happier
H/(H+D) between .2 and .25
Feb 10 2005 01:11:08:520PM1050210003Earl Marmardata system hang during init
no power cycle

shot counter not incremented, so next attempt will also be shot 3
Feb 10 2005 01:13:48:393PM1050210003Earl Marmarenable argon (PG1, 75 ms pulse width)
no pcs changes
plasma
H/(H+D) ~ .25 to .3
Feb 10 2005 02:04:09:310PM1050210004Earl Marmarnl_04 prog up to 7e19, to puff some gas

had a long delay for cell entry before the shot

plasma

got the density
a little RF from E port (short, 40 kW pulses)

H/(H+D) ~ .22
Feb 10 2005 02:23:24:503PM1050210005Earl Marmarturn off the gas puff at 1.0 seconds (nl_04 program goes negative at that time)

plasma, early disruption (~.5 seconds)


Feb 10 2005 02:32:40:003PM1050210006Earl Marmarturn off nl_04 feedback gain

reduce prefill puff by 3 ms (to 21 ms)

preprogram small maintenance on PG3 (~20) between 0.1 and 1.0 seconds

fizzle
lots of z-meter light; essentially no Ip


Feb 10 2005 02:38:22:487PM1050210007Earl Marmarreduce prefill another 3 ms, to 18 ms
fizzle
Feb 10 2005 03:04:06:380PM1050210008Earl Marmarreduce prepuff another 2 ms to 16 ms
fizzle
still almost no Ip
Feb 10 2005 03:07:47:037PM1050210009Earl Marmarno changes
fizzle
Feb 10 2005 03:23:53:657PM1050210010Earl Marmarreduce prepuff another 2 ms to 16 ms

plasma
short and brutish; could be a tad dirty
Feb 10 2005 03:36:43:253PM1050210011Earl Marmarreduce prefill another 1 ms (to 13 ms)

reduce segment 1 gas puff early

turn off segment 2 gas puff

some kind of engineering problem (network, PLC)? just before pulse.
No power shot.
Feb 10 2005 03:49:58:767PM1050210012Earl Marmarno pcs changes

plasma, full length
100 kW RF pulse
H/(H+D) ~ .45
Feb 10 2005 04:03:41:583PM1050210013Earl Marmarincrease prepuff by 1 ms to 14 ms

inner wall limited:
reduce RCUR by .01 m
reduce CLEARIN by .02 m

plasma
got higher density
inner gap ~2 mm, rising to ~4mm near end of flattop
H/(H+D) ~ 0.5
Feb 10 2005 04:26:09:500PM1050210014Earl Marmardecrease CLEARIN another 10 mm
decrease RCUR another 5 mm
smooth out the RXL and ZXL sweeps

plasma
well limited on the inner wall
H/(H+D) ~ .45

nl04 is approaching 9e19 with no segment 2 D2 puff
Feb 10 2005 04:26:40:170PM1050210015Earl MarmarIp prog to 1.0 MA
increase RCUR .001 m

fizzle
Feb 10 2005 04:47:19:260PM1050210016Earl Marmarreduce prepuff by 1 ms
plasma
1 MA shot

disrupts at end of flattop (OH2's at PLC limit, EF1U at the rail after 1 second)

nl04 to 1.1e20 (still no puff in segment 2)
H/(H+D) ~ 0.45
Feb 10 2005 04:56:55:340PM1050210017Earl Marmarlower prefill puff to 12 msec
Ip to 0.8 MA
ZXU reduced to 4 cm (from 6 cm)

fizzle
Feb 10 2005 05:16:59:410PM1050210018Earl Marmarswitching to the MP399

Digital Plasma Control System checkout

load segment 2 from 1050209008

fizzle
Feb 10 2005 05:30:17:150PM1050210019Earl Marmarno pcs changes

plasma

disrupt at 1.3 s

early runaways
Feb 10 2005 05:39:23:357PM1050210020Earl Marmarput back some of the segment 1 D2 gas puff
turn on nl04 feedback, gain = 8
nl_04 prog to 5e19
fizzle
Feb 10 2005 06:20:38:477PM1050210021Earl Marmarreduce BR0 offset by 0.5 mTesla (make it more negative)

plasma, ramped all the way down

H/(H+D) ~ .45
Feb 10 2005 06:29:55:173PM1050210022Earl Marmaradd a little more D2 puff after 50 ms

keep density demand on to end of flattop

plasma, ramps all the way down

H/(H+D) ~ .35
Feb 10 2005 06:50:48:370PM1050210023Earl Marmarno pcs changes

DPCS cycle rate being slowed, expect to lose vertical control at some point when the rate is too slow

plasma; disrupt at 0.6 seconds

H/(H+D) ~ .4 to .5, rising to 0.8 at the disruption
Feb 10 2005 06:51:01:903PM1050210024Earl Marmarno pcs changes

fizzle
Feb 10 2005 07:03:49:000PM1050210025Earl Marmardecrease prepuff by 1 ms (to 11 ms)

fizzle

Engineering Operator Comments
ShotTimeTypeStatusComment
112:18:53:037PMPlasmaOk
212:35:06:113PMPlasmaOk
301:07:16:957PMPlasmaOk
401:51:17:530PMPlasmaOk
502:10:52:060PMPlasmaOk
602:24:09:097PMPlasmaOk
702:36:49:207PMPlasmaOk
802:49:56:980PMPlasmaOk
903:02:23:227PMPlasmaOk
1003:14:58:423PMPlasmaOk
1103:29:08:487PMPlasmaBadAck Failure, Power Supplies Didn't Fire
1203:40:56:540PMPlasmaOk
1303:55:27:020PMPlasmaOk
1404:08:42:227PMPlasmaOk
1504:22:16:107PMPlasmaOk
1604:35:06:300PMPlasmaOk
1704:53:02:087PMPlasmaOk
1805:06:27:263PMPlasmaOk
1905:19:07:630PMPlasmaOk
2005:37:35:120PMPlasmaOk
2106:10:08:727PMPlasmaOk
2206:23:00:530PMPlasmaOk
2306:35:36:640PMPlasmaOk
2406:48:29:753PMPlasmaOk
2507:01:15:913PMPlasmaOk