From: Bob Simmons [bsimmons@pppl.gov]
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 3:22 PM
To: Marton_Warren; Pitonak_Greg; Nardella_Gene; Schmidt_John;
Neilson_Hutch; Strykowsky_Ron; Reiersen_Wayne
Cc: Finfgeld_Chuck; Lyon_Jim; Hawryluk_Rich; Zarnstorff_Mike
Subject: NCSX IPT Meeting Minutes

Folks,

Minutes of the NCSX-DOE IPT Meeting on September 18, 2002

On the teleconference:  Warren Marton (DOE-OFES),  Greg Pitonak (DOE-PG),
Gene Nardella (DOE-OFES), John Schmidt (PPPL), Hutch Neilson (PPPL), Wayne
Reiersen (PPPL), Ron Strykowsky (PPPL), and Bob Simmons (PPPL).

Topics of Discussion:
(1) DOE Status (Warren Marton and Greg Pitonak)
	(a) AEP continues to await signature by Under Secretary Card.  To the best
of Warren and Greg's knowledge, all the issues have been resolved.  Warren
will continue to follow-up with Card's office.
	(b) Continuing Resolution - no new status except that DOE financial types
have confirmed that the monies targeted for the MIE Project can be
reprogrammed to advanced conceptual design activities during the continuing
resolution period.  Hutch pointed out that while PPPL activities would be
relatively unaffected by an expected continuing resolution spanning several
months, ORNL will be impacted much more (in the worst case) due to its
inability to staff up. PPPL and ORNL are currently exploring areas in which
PPPL can temporarily assume some of the ORNL work, if necessary, until the
continuing resolution is lifted.
	(c) Impact of a protracted continuing resolution will be mitigated somewhat
by the progress in the extended advanced conceptual design phase. Overall
impact will be less than a month for month delay in the Project and no
expected increase in the TEC.
	(d) Initial NCSX Project baseline will reflect the $73.5M TEC and June 2007
first plasma date, the updated CDR technical design that incorporated CDR
comments, and the revised WBS structure. This is consistent with the OMB-300
submitted by DOE.  The cost and schedule baselines were reflected in the
recently approved Project Execution Plan.  Other TEC impacts such as the
recent DOE accounting ruling on Security and Safeguards (approximately $500K
at PPPL and "t.b.d" at ORNL) will be fully defined and included in the
omnibus ECP that will reflect the new coil design.  It is expected that this
ECP will be finalized around the time of the Modular Coil and Vacuum Vessel
PDR next spring.  The project will still be within the baseline range
established at CD-1 once this ECP is processed and approved.

(2) Technical Design Progess (Hutch Neilson and Wayne Reiersen)
	(a) The Project is continuing to investigate several coil designs that
result in an improved physics performance.  Over the summer, several
encouraging concepts have been evaluated and several have completed the coil
healing process.  Recent additions to the PPPL computing capability have
improved the turn-around time.  Hopefully, a final coil decision will be
made by mid-October and this will still support the plan to have an updated
CAD model in the December or early January time frame available by the time
the Modular Coil manufacturing development contracts are awarded.
	(b) Recently, it was determined that the poloidal time constants were on
the order of 40ms-50ms, much too close to the ramp up rate of ~60ms.
Ideally, we would like a poloidal time constant to be short relative to the
ramp up rate.  The Project is exploring the possibility of adding a poloidal
break to shorten the time constant.
	(c) With the current coil and VV designs, there appears to be an
interference between the field periods and VV in the final assembly process
when the three field periods are moved into their final positions. It is not
known if any of the new coil designs have this problem.  This is still very
much a work in progress.
	(d) The Project is exploring new cooling concepts involving spraying copper
directly on the coil winding "tees" and using a wire mesh arrangement to
facilitate better cooling distribution.
	(e) Modular Coil SPEB has been formed and is developing the procurement
package for release in early to mid-October.  A meeting yesterday with the
DOE Contracting Officer (Jerry Faul) resolved his concerns vis-a-vis impact
of a continuing resolution on the ability to place this order. It was agreed
that DOE would soon get the applicable sections (RFP & SOW) of the
procurement package for review and that, once DOE comments were
incorporated, the Project could release the RFP.  Depending on the status of
the continuing resolution, a later decision would be made as to what DOE
could commit to relative to awarding the contract. It was pointed out that
the contract could be phase authorized and funded.

(3) Funding Distribution Between Participants
The initial FY2003 Fin Plan for the NCSX Project did not properly reflect
the funding distribution and this has been the subject of recent discussions
between Rich Hawryluk and John Willis to see if an interim adjustment could
be made.  In parallel, the Project has submitted a proposed funding profile
distribution for FY2003 to DOE (Warren Marton) for both the MIE Project and
Research Prep based on the proposed $11,026K MIE Project and $1,200K
Research Prep, that indicates the proposed distribution of funds between
PPPL, ORNL, and LLNL.  Of course, the exact split will be dependent on the
final FY2003 authorization, but it was hoped that this information would
serve as a template when DOE finally distributes the FY2003 funds.

The next IPT meeting will be Wednesday, October 9th, at 11:00 am.  NOTE THE
CHANGE IN THE DAY OF THE WEEK.

If you have any corrections, please contact me.

Bob S.

Bob Simmons
NCSX Systems Engineering Support Manager
Engineering Wing Room 120 (MS-08)
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
U.S. Route 1 North, Receiving 3
Princeton, New Jersey 08543
Telephone: (609) 243-2766
Fax: (609) 243-3030