Abstract: An electrode for a plasma arc torch is provided with features for improving electrode wear. An emissive insert is received into a cavity formed along one end of the torch body. A portion of the emissive insert is separated from the torch body by a sleeve positioned along the insert near the emission surface of the insert. The sleeve can operate to slow the erosion of the electrode body and thereby improve overall electrode life.

Abstract: Existing synchronization methods can be inefficient in hardware-assisted implementations because of the effects of various jittery events. Thus, a method and an apparatus are provided to synchronize a slave device's clock to a master device's clock for a hardware-assisted implementation. The method can include the receipt of three messages. Time differences are determined based on a time extracted from two of the messages and a time of receipt of a different one of the messages. The slave device's clock can be adjusted based on these time differences. Thus, this method, which can include a dynamic weighted average to compute and implement the synchronization, can synchronize the clock of the slave device to the clock of the master device in a faster time interval.

Abstract: Existing synchronization methods can be inefficient in hardware-assisted implementations because of the effects of various jittery events. Thus, a method and an apparatus are provided to synchronize a slave device's clock to a master device's clock for a hardware-assisted implementation. The method can include the receipt of three messages. Time differences are determined based on a time extracted from two of the messages and a time of receipt of a different one of the messages. The slave device's clock can be adjusted based on these time differences. Thus, this method, which can include a dynamic weighted average to compute and implement the synchronization, can synchronize the clock of the slave device to the clock of the master device in a faster time interval.

Abstract: An electrode for a plasma arc torch is provided with features for improving electrode wear. An emissive insert is received into a cavity formed along one end of the torch body. A portion of the emissive insert is separated from the torch body by a sleeve positioned along the insert near the emission surface of the insert. The sleeve can operate to slow the erosion of the electrode body and thereby improve overall electrode life.

Abstract: A computer system and method optimizes the heating exchanging geometry of a radial cooled bucket for a turbine engine. The computer system enables rapidly prototyping and evaluations of different radial cooled bucket configurations. The computer system includes a simulator and an optimizer. The simulator forms an analytical model of the bucket and executes a simulation of a thermal environment within the engine producing a predicted performance parameter for the model. The optimizer compares the performance parameter to a baseline criterion. If the performance parameter does not match the baseline criterion the optimizer automatically indexes a variable of defining the geometry.