Mr. Pridemore is currently employed by General Electric Aircraft Engines in Cincinnati, Ohio and has over 23 years of experience working in the field of gas turbine engine Failure Analysis. Mr. Pridemore has split his professional career between GEAE (16 years) and Rolls-Royce (7 years), serving primarily as a senior metallurgist/principal engineer within the materials department. Mr. Pridemore has conducted over 700 investigations on a wide variety of engine hardware ranging from rotating components (disks, spools) to airfoils (compressor, turbine) to composite structures (fan blades, ducts). Working on the whole engine system has led to a thorough understanding of the failure mechanisms affecting the materials used in today’s gas turbine engines. He has led numerous high profile investigations involving engine uncontainments and military mishaps during his career, leading to a good working relationship with the various domestic and foreign government agencies (NTSB, TSB, BEA, etc.) as well as USAF military boards. Mr. Pridemore was also involved in the analysis of the Sioux City fan disk separation event which directly led to the DC-10 accident.  

 

Mr. Pridemore currently teaches Failure Analysis courses internally at GE Aircraft Engines and externally at the USC Aviation Safety School. Other duties include consultation across the other GE businesses plus the mentoring and development of other Failure Analysis engineers. Mr. Pridemore has also been involved in several litigation and deposition inquiries involving engine events plus has several shared years working as a Materials Application Engineer. Engine family lines familiar with include, GEAE military (J79, F110, F101, F118 and TF39), GEAE commercial (CF6, CFM56 and GE90) and GEAE industrial (LM2500 and LM5000) and demonstrator engines. Mr. Pridemore is also familiar with the smaller Rolls-Royce Allison engine lines such as the T800, 250 Series, T56, AE2100, AE3007.

 

Mr. Pridemore holds a B.S and M.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati where his primary graduate work was on "Delayed Cracking of Deep-Drawn Metastable Austenitic Stainless Steels". Research in this area provided early experience in both stress corrosion cracking and hydrogen embrittlement mechanisms. Mr. Pridemore has also authored several published papers on various failure analysis mechanisms and is a current member of the ASM Failure Analysis committee. Mr. Pridemore also holds an Aviation Safety Certificate from the University of Southern California.