Alcator C-Mod Run 930810 Information

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Miniproposals
Miniproposal:019
Date Filed: 7/22/1993
Title:Plasma current feedback control
First Author:John Goetz
Session Leader:John Goetz (shots 1-28)

Operators
Session leader(s):John Goetz
Physics operator(s):Ian Hutchinson
Engineering operator(s):Frank Silva

Engineering Operator Run Comment
021

Session Leader Plans

Physics Operators Plans

Session Leader Summaries
Entered: Jul 7 2004 03:49:08:477PM
Author: To Be Determined
Run Summary for 10 Aug 93 IHH, JG.

Objectives were:
(1) Get EF4 current reversal going with plasma. Engineering tests
today looked good. Zero current at ~100ms, 35ms pause, negative ramp
at nearly the same voltage, about -700, limited by the hybrid demand.
Well done, engineers! (...so far!!).
(2) Obtain elongated and diverted plasmas. We have the limiter moved
out to 0.96m to help give some more space. We shall start with only
-1cm on the zcur.
(3) Observe the effect of the EF4 reverse swing on the RXpoint
position.
(4) Try to feedback on this.

Only (2) was achieved because the others depended on EF4 which did not
reverse reliably. It is clear that we have insufficient EF4 voltage to
ramp to zero in less than ~200ms when fighting the EF3 etc.

However, substantial development work improved the current rise and
obtained interesting diverted shapes for the first time since going to
higher OH precharge.

Scorecard: 4 duds. 2 Fizzles. 20 plasmas. Not bad for Tuesday.

Shot summary for 930810.

1 Chopper off. p_0=1.2e-5 EF4@1090 B_z+ve, Fiz.
2 Ratiomatic was off. EF4@1040 Crashed in 15ms Fiz.
3 p_0=1.0e-5 Ratiomatic on. Disrupt @ 170ms Plasma
4 Lowered pulse gas. Disrupt @ 220ms Plasma
5 Chopper on. Lowered gas more. EF3 -2200V. EF4 invert lowered
at 200ms. Chopper threw plasma out at 150ms Plasma
6 Chopper limit lowered. Halved B side gas initial. EF4 -1000V.
EF4 current demand changed. Longer shot. EF4 did not reverse. Plasma
Plasma rides high for a long time. 0.5MA.
7 Chopper off. Lowered gas init. Argon on. Lower later Oh1&2
demand. Good but plasma still high. Puzzle. Plasma
8 Added gas ~100ms. EF4 -700V. Dud
9 p_0=1.1e-5. Still a vertical excursion. Plasma
10 Raised Ef1/2. Tweaked OH2LV to help position. No EF4 reverse. Plasma
11 Tweaked OH2 another 5V. Raised EF1 early. Upper x. Plasma
12 OH2L 5V tweak later. Raised EF1 early some more. Prolonged the
OH V-program after 300ms. Turn off EF4 reversal...PS problems. Dud
13 p_0=1.2e-5. EF4 1065A. Doubled the A-port gas. Disrupts @
210ms. Current rise was bad. Perhaps because of the long wait
we had because of IGOR. Plasma
14 Repeat. Still a bad rise. Plasma
15 Took out the EF4 change. Now 1050A. Increased ZCUR P to 1.0
from 0.4. Still bad rise, moving in. Plasma
16 p_0=1.0e-5. Dud
17 p_0=1.2e-5. Oh1 voltage made more negative to move out. Plasma
18 Lowered B-gas by 1/3. Still disruptive. Plasma
19 EF4 early inversion increased. Ef1 inversion increased.
changed OH2 position tweak. Disrupted at 210 as before. Plasma
20 Reloaded shot 11. Disruptive like the others.
Demonstrates it was nothing we did. Plasma
21 Reload shot 19. EF4 current to 2200. OH2l(dif) P=.1. Plasma
22 Lowered gas turn of argon. Better current rise. Plasma
23 ZCUR gains raised a lot. (p=4,d=4). Disruptive. Plasma
24 Raised EF3 V to -2300 at 50 ms. Long shot riding low. There
seems to be something wrong with the zcur predictor; however we
have a great current rise. Plasma
25 Raised EF1 current to 2500A. Added a second A puff. Plasma
26 EF1 2700A. EF3-100V more. raised second puff Dud


SOME MORE DETAILS:

Moving the OH1 crowbar removed most of the position problems as expected.

EF4 current reversal was not reliable. The PS seemed to push current
back up when it neared zero. Engineering gave up and went to
2-quadrant at shot 12. Thereafter we were simply ramping to zero as
fast as possible.

The gas was way too high to begin with (settings of 930804029) the
B-side total was lowered by nearly a factor of four. So that by shot
9 we had a reasonable current rise with good position control. Shot 11
was good. However, from then till 22 the gas seemed still to be
choking the current rise. Further lowering and turning off argon
helped the rise so much that we then had to increase the EF3
(negative) voltage to compensate the outward motion of the plasma
during the rise because the rate of current rise was so much better.

OH2s were found to have a noticeable imbalance in the power-supply
response to equal demand. OH2L gave about 20% more voltage in
inversion than OH2U. This made the plasma move up steadily from about
120ms onward. The voltage demand was tweaked by hand from shot 10 on,
to balance this. The position feedback was not able to compensate with
the gains we had. On shot 23 we discoverd the reason for this; namely
that we had reduced the M's of the zcur to allow a greater gain, so
that the chopper could be put into this predictor with enough
sensitivity. However, the gains on PD were not turned up. Therefore
prior to 23 the plasma had ~10 times less feedback gain on the
vertical position which explains why it was behaving in that way!

On shot 22 and following, the zcur predictor broke because the Bp coil
BP17 broke. This caused predictors based on the BC set to think that
the plasma is higher than it is. Consequently the plasma was moved
down by about 5cm. This gave some pretty interesting shapes on 25.
Despite a plasma moved down by 5 cm, the symmetric EF3 currents give a
nearly double null divertor.

The chopper was turned on for shots 5 and 6. It also had the effect of
moving the plasma up. However, it was not to blame for the longer
time-scale drift. That was the OH2. Engineering problems required us
to turn it off. It needs debugging so we went ahead without it.

The several duds that we had were indicative, it seems, of TOO LOW a
fill pressure. With luck we have now got a window for raising the fill
pressure; since running with lower than 1.2e-5 can give duds. There
may be some drift up of the lowest allowable with time.
Recommendation: use 1.2e-5 or more once operation is established.

Physics Operator Summaries

Session Leader Comments
Aug 10 1993 09:10:49:700AMJohn GoetzRun 930810
EO: Silva
PO: Hutchinson
APO: Goetz

Objectives for today's run follow from MP019 - Discharge Development under the
topic of x-point control.
1 - Get EF4 current reversal going with plasma
2 - Obtain elongated and diverted plasmas (the limiter is out to 0.96m;
ZCUR = -.01m)
3 - Observe the effect of EF4 reverse swing on the R_XL (radius of
lower x-point)
4 - Feedback on R_XL


Aug 10 1993 11:37:34:110AMJohn GoetzRun 930810
Shot 006
Good plasma - 490kA - some flattop - 500+ msec
disruption at 75msec - triggered by chopper turn on
density falls - Halpha rises - plasma is in and high

Changes for 007:
chopper off
lower fueling puff early in time

Aug 10 1993 09:49:27:860AM930810001John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 001
New OH2 controllers installed.
New KAPPA, RXL, and ZXL predictors installed, although the PID's are
zeroed.
S_EF4 and V_EF4 programmed to ramp EF4 down rapidly and reverse the
current.

Fizzle
Bz was a little too positive at t=0.
EF4 did reverse but there was a blip before reversal

Changes for 002:
Lower EF4 to 1090

Aug 10 1993 10:08:00:050AM930810002John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 002
Fizzle
Bz o.k.
Density rises quickly (too quickly?)

Changes for 003:
Lower fill pressure to 1.0e-5 from 1.2e-5



Aug 10 1993 10:28:00:210AM930810003John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 003
Plasma - 200kA
vertical position lost beginning at 135 msec and disr. at 160
too much gas?!?! according to scatterplot history
Changes for 004:
PULSE_GAS_1 off
PULSE_GAS_2 dropped from 80V to 60V
PULSE_GAS_3 spike width halfed


Aug 10 1993 10:44:29:190AM930810004John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 004
Plasma - 370kA; vertical disruption at 220 msec
trouble during current rise - many mini disruptions
running inside on the limiter the whole shot

Changes for 005:
lower the fueling gas some more
change V_EF3 from -2400 to -2200 @26msec to help push out the plasma

Aug 10 1993 11:10:02:240AM930810005John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 005
Plasma - 290 kAmps - disruption at 150 msec
current rise smoother this shot
vertical position control lost @66msec - choppah problems

Changes for 006:
V_EF4 changed to -1000V from -700V @t=0
lowered fuel gas

Aug 10 1993 12:09:40:230PM930810007John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 007
Plasma - 470kA - good flattop - 500+ msec
plasma is running high - OH2's imbalanced - puzzling behavior
no EF4 reversal

Changes for 008:
chopper on at 400msec
added fuel gas at 70msec to fill in density dip
changed V_EF4 to -700 from -1000

Aug 10 1993 12:22:23:140PM930810008John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 008
Dud
EF4 reversed
no magnetics problem

Changes for 009:
up fill pressure to 1.1e-5

Aug 10 1993 12:45:05:450PM930810009John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 009:
450 kA for 100msec flattop
chunk taken out of current rise @115msec
plasma begins to move up @140msec
EF4 has current reversal

Changes for 010:
made OH2l voltage demand less negative from 100 to 200 msec
raise EF1 and EF2 demands

Aug 10 1993 01:07:43:700PM930810010John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 010:
plasma - 450kA - 100+msec flattop
ZCUR position now +2.5 instead of +5. - V_OH2 tweaks worked
upper divertor at 375msec - kappa~1.4 -> ~1.6 at diversion
no EF4 reversal

Changes for 011:
more V_OH2L tweaks to remove imbalance
up V_EF1 to -200V (less negative) early for more elongation

Aug 10 1993 01:25:06:970PM930810011John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 011:
500kA - 100msec flattop - upper divertor @ 370msec
ZCUR control o.k. until 250msec - plasma begins to move up to +4cm
current rise smoothed out with the EF1 tweak

Changes for 012:
tweak V_OH2L late in time to help out ZCUR
made V_EF1 less negative early
prolonged V_OH1 and V_OH2's late (after 350msec)

Aug 10 1993 01:38:04:820PM930810012John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 012:
Dud - Bz on the edge of goodness (according to scatterplot)

Changes for 013:
up fill pressure to 1.2e-5
raise IC_EF4 by 15A to 1065A

Aug 10 1993 02:09:56:640PM930810013John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 013:
plasma - disruption @215msec
hard x-ray bursts beginning @125msec - current rolls over -
plasma moves in and down at this time
disruption is up and out
current rise is slow

Changes for 014:
no changes

Aug 10 1993 02:27:17:270PM930810014John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 014:
plasma - disruption at 220 msec - loose control down and in
ugly shot
no hards

Changes for 015:
up P gain on ZCUR to 1.0 (from 0.4)
IC_EF4 down 15A to 1050A

Aug 10 1993 02:38:50:290PM930810015John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 015:
Plasma - almost a trace over of 014.

Changes for 016:
lower fill pressure to 1.0e-5

Aug 10 1993 02:53:08:120PM930810016John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 016:
Dud - fill pressure too low

Changes for 017:
raise fill to 1.2e-5
make V_OH1 more negative from 20 -> 50msec to push plasma off inner wall

Aug 10 1993 03:07:33:950PM930810017John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 017:
plasma - disruption @215 msec - riding in too far early in time
begins moving down at ~170msec

Changes for 018:
lowered fueling pulse by ~30%

Aug 10 1993 03:20:53:750PM930810018John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 018:
plasma - disruption @ 225msec
plasma begins to move down @ 180 msec

Changes for 019:
tweak V_OH2L @ 200 msec (make it 5V more negative) to help the ZCUR
lower V_EF1's to -190V @50 msec to help with current rise

Aug 10 1993 03:32:13:100PM930810019John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 019:
plasma - disruption @ 225msec - bad current rise
plasma begins to move up at 170msec

Changes for 020:
reload 930810011 in an attempt to find a good shot

Aug 10 1993 03:50:24:180PM930810020John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 020:
ugly shot - current rise is terrible - disruption @210msec
plasma dies down

Changes for 021:
reload shot 930810019
lowered EF1 current to 2200A (from 2400)
put OH2L (difference) P=0.1 for all time

Aug 10 1993 04:06:13:380PM930810021John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 021:
bad current rise - disruption @250msec - plasma starts down @225msec
mini-disruption @130msec

Changes for 022:
turn off PULSE_GAS_1 (Ar)
lower both fueling pulses

Aug 10 1993 04:26:13:900PM930810022John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 022:
bad current rise - plasma recovers and reaches 430kA and 525msec
ZCUR controller having almost no effect
lower divertor when plasma is down (almost down the slot)

Changes for 023:
up P gain on ZCUR to 4.0

Aug 10 1993 04:37:53:690PM930810023John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 023:
plasma - disruption @ 210msec - plasma too far out during current rise
plasma moves down

Changes for 024:
lower V_EF3 to -2300V (from -2100) @50msec to keep the plasma inside



Aug 10 1993 04:54:16:600PM930810024John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 024:
plasma - 550kA - 550msec - no disruption - smooth current rise
lower divertor around 400msec
stuffed into the slot around 250 msec

Changes for 025:
added second spike to PULSE_GAS_3
raised EF1 current to 2500A (try and really divert the next plasma)


Aug 10 1993 05:05:33:290PM930810025John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 025:
plasma - 450kA - 550msec
chunk taken out of current rise at 130msec
diverted from 180msec on (lower)

Changes for 026:
raise EF1 current to 2700A
lower EF3 voltage to -2400V

Aug 10 1993 05:21:47:240PM930810026John GoetzRun 930810
Shot 026:
Dud
Fill pressure acceptable
Magnetics acceptable

Aug 10 1993 05:36:38:470PM930810028John Goetztest

Physics Operator Comments

Engineering Operator Comments
ShotTimeTypeStatusComment
109:30:18:810AMPlasmaOkef4 double swing
209:50:32:640AMPlasmaOkbd
310:10:32:220AMPlasmaOkbetter
410:27:41:310AMPlasmaOkbetter
510:44:50:140AMPlasmaOkall tmx supplies operated chopper inop
611:08:57:840AMPlasmaOkef4 tmx c opened reset
711:33:16:340AMPlasmaOkno chopper, tmx ef4c opened
812:00:45:140PMPlasmaBadef4 tmx ok
912:20:32:610PMPlasmaOkplasma
1012:45:19:490PMPlasmaOkShoot through on ef4.
1101:05:56:870PMPlasmaOkhad to wait
1201:24:21:520PMPlasmaOkno plasma
1301:57:43:740PMPlasmaBadplasma
1402:11:54:280PMPlasmaOkplasma
1502:28:58:830PMPlasmaOkplasma
1602:42:49:100PMPlasmaBadfizzel
1702:55:23:040PMPlasmaOksparker
1803:09:37:010PMPlasmaOkplasma
1903:23:44:590PMPlasmaOkOlasma shot no faults
2003:37:27:480PMPlasmaOkplasma shot No power supply faults.
2103:51:29:890PMPlasmaOkplasma shot no faults.
2204:06:54:000PMPlasmaOkok
2304:23:47:880PMPlasmaOkPlasma shot No faults.
2404:37:53:770PMPlasmaOkPlasma shot No faults.
2504:52:56:480PMPlasmaOkplasma
2605:06:41:710PMPlasmaOk
2705:23:31:720PMTestBadno pulse -- igor bypassed
2805:29:26:040PMTestOkef4 test ok