Alcator C-Mod Run 990526 Information

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Miniproposals
Miniproposal:209
Date Filed: 1/4/1999
Title:Exercise the Flapper and Associated Diagnostics in Ohmic Discharges
First Author:Spencer Pitcher
Session Leader:Spencer Pitcher (shots 1-29)
Miniproposal:242
Date Filed: 3/11/1999
Title:Influence of the Right Gap on Mid-Plane Pressure and SOL Profiles
First Author:Spencer Pitcher
Session Leader:Spencer Pitcher (shots 1-29)

Operators
Session leader(s):Spencer Pitcher,Spencer Pitcher
Physics operator(s):Robert Granetz
Engineering operator(s):Frank Silva

Engineering Operator Run Comment
MP#242/Granetz/Silva

Session Leader Plans

Physics Operators Plans

Session Leader Summaries
Entered: Jul 7 2004 03:49:20:743PM
Author: To Be Determined
Summary for run 990526, MP 242 Right Gap Scan
(piggy-back MP 209 flapper)
SL S Pitcher
PO B Granetz

This was a very pain day, trying to obtain plasmas
with right gaps greater than 2 cm. Most attempts
terminated with vertical instabilities early in
the discharge. One shot, shot 23, had a right gap
scan from 1 cm to almost 3 cm and then went unstable.

Despite the sparse data, it does appear that the
right gap influences the midplane pressure (0 cm to 2.5 cm), and
to a lesser extent the divertor pressure. The best
way of quantifying the effect is in the compression
ratio, which varied from CR = 165 with 0 cm right
gap to values as high as CR = 270 with right gap 2.5 cm.

We took helium probe, FSP and ASP profiles during
the day. These profiles, not yet analyzed, should
shed light on the interaction of the SOL plasma
with the limiters at the outside midplane. This
is the factor which presumably primarily determines the outside
midplane pressure.

We found an anti-intuitive result...with small right
gap (e.g. 5 mm) the opening of the flapper has a larger
perturbation on the midplane pressure, i.e. 50% effect compared
with 15% effect at right gap = 2.0 cm.

CSP

Physics Operator Summaries
Entered: Jul 7 2004 04:37:01:397PM
Author: To Be Determined
Physics operator summary for run 990526.

MP 242 -- Outer gap scan

SL: S. Pitcher
PO: R. Granetz

The goal for today:

Study dependence of main chamber neutral pressure on outer gap.

Summary: Running with an outer gap of 3.0 cm made the plasma vertically
unstable no matter what we did. Reducing the elongation to typical
values by lowering ZCUR (keeping x-point constant) didn't seem to
help at all. We lost a lot of the day due to commutation problems
with the OH2's. During the later hours of the run, the field nulls,
as diagnosed, looked awful, but the plasma ran reliably.

See session leader's summary for some interesting findings about the
compression ratio vs outer gap.

Scorecard: 13 plasmas
4 fizzles
1 dud (due to shot cycle/power supply fault)
10 tests
1 aborted
----------
29 total

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Engineering Setup for Wednesday, 990526

Load from 990520004 (0.8 MA, 1.4 s long flattop, nl_04=1.0e20 m-2)

1 hour ECDC in D2 prior to run, stopping in time to begin run at 08:00.

Gas setup - fill B-top with 6 psi of D2 Hybrid enabled
fill B-side lower with 1 psi of Ar Hybrid DISABLED
leave B-side upper as is Hybrid DISABLED
fill C-side with 30 psi of D2 Hybrid enabled
leave J-bottom as is Hybrid DISABLED

The following gate valves should be enabled, assuming no vacuum problems:

ECE, VUV

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Run Plan for 990526:

MP 242 -- Right gap scan

SL: S. Pitcher
PO: R. Granetz

Start by loading 990520004, an 0.8 MA, long flattop shot from last week. From
there, we will want to vary the outer gap (up to 6 cm). The resulting
elongation may cause stability problems, so we may have to play with ZCUR.
Control of SSEP and ZXU may be attempted, depending on instructions from the
session leader.

Before the physics run, we will need to do a 'Tuesday' OH test, and perhaps a
commutation test as well.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: 1 hour of ECDC in D2 was done prior to this run.

Hybrid coldstart done; no errors found
($set default cmod$models:[hybrid.tcl]
$@hybinit_dispatch
$@show_bitbus_log
Use editor search to verify no occurrences of "error" nor
"not respond")
Load 990520004.

Shot 01 -- OH test (normal 'Tuesday' coax test plus a commutation test.
All OK.

Next shot: EF4 test (bipolar) at the request of John Heard.

Shot 02 -- EF4 test for John Heard. Loaded from 990521005, a pre-programmed
bipolar test of EF4 only under hybrid control.

Next shot: plasma. Load from 990520004, a long (1.4 s flattop),
0.8 MA shot.

Shot 03 -- Test (no power shot; sort of an abort). Apparently after the
OH commutation test on shot 01, there was an auto-crowbar on OH2,
which wasn't noticed until we init'ed for this shot.

Next shot: plasma. Load from 990520004, a long (1.4 s flattop),
0.8 MA shot.

Shot 04 -- Fizzle. Very negative Br0 (-3 mT)

Next shot: raise Br0 by 0.002 T (from 0.000 to +0.002 T)

Shot 05 -- Plasma. Good shot. Ip=0.8 MA, nl_04=1.0e20 m-2, flattop to 1.4 s.
Outer gap=1.3 cm. Inner gap=1.5-1.4 cm. Br0 still too negative.
Flapper opened at 1.0 s.

Next shot: raise Br0 another 1 mT. Also enable argon puff. Also
move flapper opening earlier (to t=0.9 s instead of 1.0 s).

There was a delay between shots 5 and 6 to fix the OH2 crowbar problem.

Shot 06 -- Fizzle. No OH2 commutation. OH2's charged through their resisters;
switch must not have closed.

Shot 07 -- OH2 commutation test. Switches didn't close and didn't commutate.

There is a delay between shot 7 and 8 to work on the OH2 commutation problem.

Shot 08 -- Test. OH2 gate signals are not getting down to supply.

Shot 09 -- Test.

Shot 10 -- Test.

Shot 11 -- Test.

Shot 12 -- Test. All fixed.

Shot 13 -- Test. Final OH2 test, with power. Looks good, except the crowbar
problem returned.

Shot 14 -- Plasma. Good shot. Same as shot 05, except argon puffed, probe
fired, and flapper opened at t=0.8 s. Right gap=1.25 cm. Br0 is
still too negative.

Next shot: increase right gap to 2.5 cm (reduce RCUR by 6 mm), and
increase Br0 offset by another 0.5 mT (to +0.0035)

Shot 15 -- Plasma. Good shot. Outer gap=2.0 cm, not 2.5 cm. Elongation rose
to 1.7. Argon not puffed. Spencer reports that both F-side and
B-bottom pressures were lower on this shot than the previous shot
(when flaps are closed). Nice null.

Next shot: increase right gap to 3.0 cm. Re-enable argon puff.

Shot 16 -- Plasma. Disrupted at 0.53 s due to vertical instability; not
unexpected. Outer gap reached 3.0 cm, elongation=1.75-1.8.

Next shot: lower Zcur by 10 mm, and move argon puff to t=0.5 s.

Shot 17 -- Fizzle. Br0 too high.

Next shot: reduce Br0 by 1.5 mT (+0.0035 to +0.002 T).

Shot 18 -- Plasma. Disrupted at t=0.55 s. Zcentroid did indeed drop by 1 cm.
Elongation was only 1.7.

Next shot: lower ZCUR another 1 cm, raise ZXU by 2 cm (S. Wolfe),
and turn off argon.

Shot 19 -- Plasma. Disrupted at t=0.55 s. Elongation was less than 1.7.
EF4 was very close to the PLC limit.

Next shot: same, except raise PLC limit from 8 to 8.5 kA

Shot 20 -- Plasma. Disrupted at t=0.58 s, same stability problem.

Next shot: ramp the gap. Start around t=0.4-0.6 at the RCUR from
shot 15, and ramp to the gap on shot 20 at t=1.5 s. Flapper will
also be turned off.

Shot 21 -- Plasma. Disrupted at t=0.36 s. I think it was a moly injection,
not a VDE.

Next shot: repeat, no changes.

Shot 22 -- Fizzle. Br0 was too positive.

Next shot: decrease Br0 offset by 1 mT, and start outer gap ramp
at the same value as on shot 5 (and ramp down to the value on
shot 20.

Shot 23 -- Plasma. Better. Gap scanned from 1.1 to 3.0 cm. Disrupted at
t=1.53 s, when the outer gap reached 3.0 cm, even though the
elongation was low (because ZCUR was still down by 2 cm).

Next shot: re-load shot 05. Also reduce Br0 by another 0.5 mT.
Also reduce I_EF4 by 15 amps.

Shot 24 -- Plasma. Good shot. Outer gap=1.4 cm.

Next shot: decrease outer gap to 3 mm. Also reduce IC_EF4 by
another 15 amps, and reduce Br0 by another 0.5 mT.

Shot 25 -- Plasma. Good shot. Outer gap=0.5 cm.

Next shot: argon puff at t=0.5 s. Also reduce IC_EF4 by another
15 amps, and reduce Br0 by another 0.5 mT.

Shot 26 -- Plasma. Good shot. Outer gap=0.5 cm. (The nulls since shot 22
have looked really awful on the mflux plots, but they're still
going. This shot may have hit something at 27 ms.)

Next shot: reduce gap to 0 cm!

Shot 27 -- Aborted (hung up in INIT).

Shot 28 -- Dud. Lots of power supplies didn't fire.

Shot 29 -- Plasma. Good shot. Marginally limited on outboard limiter for
the entire flattop. No obvious problems with molydenum or Prad.
Argon puffed at t=0.3 s. Null still looks awful.

End of run.

Session Leader Comments
May 26 1999 09:11:33:450AM990526005Spencer Pitcherflapper opens 1.0 s (strange flapper voltage wave)
density affected by flapper
helium beam gas at 0.5 s
left gap = 1.4 cm, right gap = 1.4 cm, elongation = 1.66
fside press = 0.19 mTorr
no argon
--------------------------
May 26 1999 12:36:15:623PM990526014Spencer Pitcher"repeat"
flapper opens 0.8 s >> effects density
helium beam gas at 0.4 s
left gap = 1.4 cm, right gap = 1.2 cm, elongation = 1.66
argon
fsp,asp
--------------------------
May 26 1999 12:46:59:060PM990526015Spencer Pitcher
flapper opens 0.8 s >> effects density
helium beam gas at 0.4 s
left gap = 1.4 cm, right gap = 2.0 cm, elongation = 1.71
no argon
no fsp,asp
--------------------------
May 26 1999 01:20:55:840PM990526016Spencer Pitcherdisrupts at 0.53 s
flapper opens 0.8 s >> effects density
helium beam gas at 0.4 s
left gap = 1.5 cm, right gap = 2.8 cm, elongation = 1.79
argon
no fsp,asp
--------------------------
May 26 1999 01:48:56:840PM990526018Spencer Pitcherdisrupts at 0.55 s
flapper opens 0.8 s
helium beam gas at 0.4 s
left gap = 1.9 cm, right gap = 2.6 cm, elongation = 1.7
argon
no fsp,asp
--------------------------
fside press is 0.13 mTorr, compression ratio (CR) = 240
these cf with shot 14, right gap = 1.2 cm, fside = .17 mTorr, CR = 190

>>> right gap seems to have influenced midplane pressure somewhat
May 26 1999 02:43:16:437PM990526019Spencer Pitcherdisrupts at 0.56 s
flapper opens 0.8 s
helium beam gas at 0.4 s
left gap = 1.5 cm, right gap = 2.6 cm, elongation = 1.69
no argon
no fsp,asp
compression ratio = 256
May 26 1999 02:51:44:140PM990526020Spencer Pitcherdisrupts at 0.58 s
flapper opens 0.8 s
helium beam gas at 0.4 s
left gap = 1.5 cm, right gap = 2.6 cm, elongation = 1.65
no argon
no fsp,asp
compression ratio = 260
May 26 1999 03:35:13:170PM990526023Spencer Pitcherright gap scan, 1 cm to approx 3 cm

disrupts in current ramp down when right gap = 2.8 cm
no flappers
helium beam gas at 0.4 s
left gap = 1.5 cm
no argon
no fsp,asp
compression ratio ramps 190 to 270
May 26 1999 03:50:05:233PM990526024Spencer Pitcherflappers .8 s
helium beam gas at 0.4 s
left gap = 1.5 cm, right gap = 1.4 cm
no argon
no fsp,asp
compression ratio 200
May 26 1999 04:06:54:327PM990526025Spencer Pitcherflappers .8 s
helium beam gas at 0.4 s
left gap = 1.5 cm, right gap = 0.5 cm
no argon
no fsp,asp
compression ratio 177
May 26 1999 04:27:16:810PM990526026Spencer Pitcherrepeat

flappers .8 s
helium beam gas at 0.4 s
left gap = 1.5 cm, right gap = 0.5 cm
argon
fsp,asp
compression ratio 170
May 26 1999 05:14:44:763PM990526029Spencer Pitcherflappers .8 s
helium beam gas at 0.4 s
left gap = 1.5 cm, right gap = 0.0 cm
argon
fsp,asp
compression ratio 165

Physics Operator Comments
May 26 1999 07:50:21:013AMRobert GranetzEngineering Setup for Wednesday, 990526

Load from 990520004 (0.8 MA, 1.4 s long flattop, nl_04=1.0e20 m-2)

1 hour ECDC in D2 prior to run, stopping in time to begin run at 08:00.

Gas setup - fill B-top with 6 psi of D2 Hybrid enabled
fill B-side lower with 1 psi of Ar Hybrid DISABLED
leave B-side upper as is Hybrid DISABLED
fill C-side with 30 psi of D2 Hybrid enabled
leave J-bottom as is Hybrid DISABLED

The following gate valves should be enabled, assuming no vacuum problems:

ECE, VUV
May 26 1999 07:50:40:043AMRobert GranetzRun Plan for 990526:

MP 242 -- Right gap scan

SL: S. Pitcher
PO: R. Granetz

Start by loading 990520004, an 0.8 MA, long flattop shot from last week. From
there, we will want to vary the outer gap (up to 6 cm). The resulting
elongation may cause stability problems, so we may have to play with ZCUR.
Control of SSEP and ZXU may be attempted, depending on instructions from the
session leader.

Before the physics run, we will need to do a 'Tuesday' OH test, and perhaps a
commutation test as well.
May 26 1999 07:50:55:793AMRobert Granetz Note: 1 hour of ECDC in D2 was done prior to this run.

Hybrid coldstart done; no errors found
($set default cmod$models:[hybrid.tcl]
$@hybinit_dispatch
$@show_bitbus_log
Use editor search to verify no occurrences of "error" nor
"not respond")
Load 990520004.
May 26 1999 07:52:56:890AM990526001Robert GranetzShot 01 -- OH test (normal 'Tuesday' coax test plus a commutation test.
All OK.

Next shot: EF4 test (bipolar) at the request of John Heard.
May 26 1999 08:06:44:843AM990526002Robert GranetzShot 02 -- EF4 test for John Heard. Loaded from 990521005, a pre-programmed
bipolar test of EF4 only under hybrid control.

Next shot: plasma. Load from 990520004, a long (1.4 s flattop),
0.8 MA shot.
May 26 1999 08:18:45:077AM990526003Robert GranetzShot 03 -- Test (no power shot; sort of an abort). Apparently after the
OH commutation test on shot 01, there was an auto-crowbar on OH2,
which wasn't noticed until we init'ed for this shot.

Next shot: plasma. Load from 990520004, a long (1.4 s flattop),
0.8 MA shot.
May 26 1999 08:34:55:890AM990526004Robert GranetzShot 04 -- Fizzle. Very negative Br0 (-3 mT)

Next shot: raise Br0 by 0.002 T (from 0.000 to +0.002 T)
May 26 1999 08:55:18:920AM990526005Robert GranetzShot 05 -- Plasma. Good shot. Ip=0.8 MA, nl_04=1.0e20 m-2, flattop to 1.4 s.
Outer gap=1.3 cm. Inner gap=1.5-1.4 cm. Br0 still too negative.
Flapper opened at 1.0 s.

Next shot: raise Br0 another 1 mT. Also enable argon puff. Also
move flapper opening earlier (to t=0.9 s instead of 1.0 s).
May 26 1999 09:26:28:967AM990526006Robert GranetzThere was a delay between shots 5 and 6 to fix the OH2 crowbar problem.
May 26 1999 09:47:39:840AM990526007Robert GranetzThere is a delay between shot 7 and 8 to work on the OH2 commutation problem.
May 26 1999 09:53:33:043AM990526007Robert GranetzShot 07 -- OH2 commutation test. Switches didn't close and didn't commutate.
May 26 1999 10:17:52:623AM990526008Robert GranetzShot 08 -- Test. OH2 gate signals are not getting down to supply.
May 26 1999 11:16:08:577AM990526009Robert GranetzShot 09 -- Test.
May 26 1999 11:16:19:403AM990526010Robert GranetzShot 10 -- Test.
May 26 1999 12:01:17:467PM990526011Robert GranetzShot 11 -- Test.
May 26 1999 12:02:20:827PM990526012Robert GranetzShot 12 -- Test. All fixed.
May 26 1999 12:14:52:857PM990526013Robert GranetzShot 13 -- Test. Final OH2 test, with power. Looks good, except the crowbar
problem returned.
May 26 1999 12:35:19:950PM990526014Robert GranetzShot 14 -- Plasma. Good shot. Same as shot 05, except argon puffed, probe
fired, and flapper opened at t=0.8 s. Right gap=1.25 cm. Br0 is
still too negative.

Next shot: increase right gap to 2.5 cm (reduce RCUR by 6 mm), and
increase Br0 offset by another 0.5 mT (to +0.0035)
May 26 1999 12:49:25:077PM990526015Robert GranetzShot 15 -- Plasma. Good shot. Outer gap=2.0 cm, not 2.5 cm. Elongation rose
to 1.7. Argon not puffed. Spencer reports that both F-side and
B-bottom pressures were lower on this shot than the previous shot
(when flaps are closed). Nice null.

Next shot: increase right gap to 3.0 cm. Re-enable argon puff.
May 26 1999 01:08:17:433PM990526016Robert GranetzShot 16 -- Plasma. Disrupted at 0.53 s due to vertical instability; not
unexpected. Outer gap reached 3.0 cm, elongation=1.75-1.8.

Next shot: lower Zcur by 10 mm, and move argon puff to t=0.5 s.
May 26 1999 01:16:59:373PM990526017Robert GranetzShot 17 -- Fizzle. Br0 too high.

Next shot: reduce Br0 by 1.5 mT (+0.0035 to +0.002 T).
May 26 1999 01:40:24:297PM990526018Robert GranetzShot 18 -- Plasma. Disrupted at t=0.55 s. Zcentroid did indeed drop by 1 cm.
Elongation was only 1.7.

Next shot: lower ZCUR another 1 cm, raise ZXU by 2 cm (S. Wolfe),
and turn off argon.
May 26 1999 02:42:33:107PM990526019Robert GranetzShot 19 -- Plasma. Disrupted at t=0.55 s. Elongation was less than 1.7.
EF4 was very close to the PLC limit.

Next shot: same, except raise PLC limit from 8 to 8.5 kA
May 26 1999 02:52:07:107PM990526020Robert GranetzShot 20 -- Plasma. Disrupted at t=0.58 s, same stability problem.

Next shot: ramp the gap. Start around t=0.4-0.6 at the RCUR from
shot 15, and ramp to the gap on shot 20 at t=1.5 s.
May 26 1999 03:05:51:357PM990526021Robert GranetzShot 21 -- Plasma. Disrupted at t=0.36 s. I think it was a moly injection,
not a VDE.

Next shot: repeat, no changes.
May 26 1999 03:19:21:717PM990526022Robert GranetzShot 22 -- Fizzle. Br0 was too positive.

Next shot: decrease Br0 offset by 1 mT, and start outer gap ramp
at the same value as on shot 5 (and ramp down to the value on
shot 20.
May 26 1999 03:40:24:217PM990526023Robert GranetzShot 23 -- Plasma. Better. Gap scanned from 1.1 to 3.0 cm. Disrupted at
t=1.53 s, when the outer gap reached 3.0 cm, even though the
elongation was low (because ZCUR was still down by 2 cm).

Next shot: re-load shot 05. Also reduce Br0 by another 0.5 mT.
Also reduce I_EF4 by 15 amps.
May 26 1999 03:51:16:433PM990526024Robert GranetzShot 24 -- Plasma. Good shot. Outer gap=1.4 cm.

Next shot: decrease outer gap to 3 mm. Also reduce IC_EF4 by
another 15 amps, and reduce Br0 by another 0.5 mT.
May 26 1999 04:04:19:780PM990526025Robert GranetzShot 25 -- Plasma. Good shot. Outer gap=0.5 cm.

Next shot: argon puff at t=0.5 s. Also reduce IC_EF4 by another
15 amps, and reduce Br0 by another 0.5 mT.
May 26 1999 04:21:50:327PM990526026Robert GranetzShot 26 -- Plasma. Good shot. Outer gap=0.5 cm. (The nulls since shot 22
have looked really awful on the mflux plots, but they're still
going. This shot may have hit something at 27 ms.)

Next shot: reduce gap to 0 cm!
May 26 1999 04:46:52:700PM990526027Robert GranetzShot 27 -- Aborted (hung up in INIT).
May 26 1999 04:49:58:747PM990526027Robert GranetzShot 28 -- Dud. Lots of power supplies didn't fire.
May 26 1999 06:04:40:530PM990526029Robert GranetzShot 29 -- Plasma. Good shot. Marginally limited on outboard limiter for
the entire flattop. No obvious problems with molydenum or Prad.
Argon puffed at t=0.3 s. Null still looks awful.

End of run.

Engineering Operator Comments
ShotTimeTypeStatusComment
107:50:57:390AMTestOkOH1,2 10KA Comm. test
208:03:22:640AMTestOkEF4 Hybrid doubleswing test OK
308:14:35:390AMPlasmaBadNo Shot Auto crowbar OH2 in Init
408:29:30:077AMPlasmaOkFizzel /Auto Crowbar fire in OH2u switch
508:44:55:607AMPlasmaOkoh2 switch auto crobar/plasma
609:19:52:607AMPlasmaBadOH2 switchno close, no open no comm
709:38:38:450AMTestBadOH PLC comm test plc control. no comm.
810:12:31:107AMTestBadOH2 trigger test, no pulses at SCRS
910:55:36:700AMTestOkOH2 Commutation test - no power
1011:14:44:687AMTestOkOH2 Commutation Test - no power
1111:21:28:297AMTestOkOH2 Comutation Test - No Power
1211:59:05:560AMTestOkOH2 trigger test
1312:09:49:123PMTestOkOH2 Commutation Test
1412:23:07:937PMTestOkno faults/plasma
1512:37:41:500PMPlasmaOkno faults/plasma
1612:55:26:640PMPlasmaOkdisruption/OH1 self powered ckt. fired after disruption
1701:10:40:873PMPlasmaOkno faults/fizzel
1801:24:11:090PMPlasmaOkno faults
1902:24:05:390PMPlasmaOkNo faults
2002:42:32:093PMPlasmaOkNo Faults
2102:57:10:750PMPlasmaOkno faults
2203:10:36:247PMPlasmaOkNo faults
2303:24:14:107PMPlasmaOkNo Faults
2403:41:42:357PMPlasmaOkNo Faults
2503:55:12:280PMPlasmaOkNo Faults
2604:14:12:857PMPlasmaOkNo Faults
2704:40:00:153PMTestBad
2804:47:09:107PMPlasmaBadNot all supplies pulsed
2904:58:23:200PMPlasmaOkNo Faults