Quality assurance (QA) for operations of fusion machines as applied to the tandem mirror experiment upgrade (TMX-U)

Even the best QA plan and its successful execution during construction of a typical fusion machine will produce hardware that is inoperative for some fraction of time. Operating a machine with its hardware out of tolerance, with respect to the specifications, does produce data which is the goal of the experiment. However, a majority of such data are difficult to interpret and may not contribute to understanding the behavior of the experiment. In addition, few fusion machines just operate. The majority of the machines are in the process of being rebuilt and/or added to as they operate. These modifications can keep an otherwise operational machine from running. To insure quality in operation of TMX-U, the authors employ a series of QA procedures. They start with technical milestones, schedules, and budgets that are all negotiated with DOE. Within that framework they implement a total management scheme which, in addition to normal schedule and budget controls, includes: detailed experimental run plans, definition of machine configuration required to accomplish the run plan, subsystem work-ups, instrument calibration, verification of subsystem operation, and repetition of standard physics plasma parameters. All of these activities must be completed before taking data for the experimental run plan. If a subsystem is found out of tolerance, a decision must be made either to delay operation and fix the problem or to continue on a contingency-run plan which should still produce the data relevant to the project milestones. In this presentation those QA procedures for TMX-U operations that are applied to minimize the cost and time required to achieve the technical objectives are discussed