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What’s the most difficult question you’ve been asked as a maintenance instructor?
Blye Widmar
"Where are the prints?!"
This was the final question in an onslaught of verbal feedback, comments, and critiques I received from my students back in 2019. I had two years of instructor experience and was teaching a class that had been meticulously rehearsed in preparation for an accreditation visit. I knew the training material well and transferred that knowledge effectively enough for all the students to pass the class. As we wrapped up, I asked the students how they felt about my first big system-level class, and they did not hold back.
“Why was the exam from memory when we don’t work from memory in the plant?” “Why didn’t we refer to the vendor documents?” “Why didn’t we practice more on the mock-up?” And so on.
S. Balme, Y. Buravand, P. Fejoz, F. Leroux, P. Pastor, N. Ravenel, P. Spuig
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 3 | October 2009 | Pages 1273-1283
Technical Papers | Tore Supra Special Issue | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A9177
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The tokamak Tore Supra was initially designed to operate long pulses, though the control and data acquisition systems nevertheless had to be upgraded to effectively perform these long-duration pulses. Continuous data acquisition was required for controlling the thermal phenomena, and huge amounts of data had to be handled, especially with the development of video imaging for the safety of the actively cooled vessel. A distributed architecture had to be developed so that real-time feedback could be implemented to ensure safe operation and to optimize the long-duration plasma performance. This paper briefly describes the initial control and data acquisition system and then reviews the developments and enhancements that were made to perform long pulses in Tore Supra.