Mr. Pridemore is currently employed by General Electric Aircraft Engines and has over 20 years of experience working in the field of gas turbine engine Failure Analysis.  Mr. Pridemore has split his professional career between GEAE (13 years) and Rolls-Royce Allison (7 years), serving as both a senior metallurgist/principal engineer and FA team leader.  Mr. Pridemore has conducted over 600 metallurgical failure 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 in this arena has led to an extensive understanding of the various fracture mechanisms in the alloys and materials used in today's gas turbine engines. Mr. Pridemore frequently works with the various  domestic and foreign government agencies (NTSB, TSB, BEA, etc.) as well as the military boards.   Mr. Pridemore has led numerous high profile investigations, engine uncontainments and military Class I mishaps. 

 

Mr. Pridemore was also involved in the analysis of the Sioux City fan disk separation which directly led to the DC-10 accident. Mr. Pridemore teaches Failure Analysis courses internally at GE Aircraft Engines and externally.    Other duties include the mentoring of Failure Analysis engineers and presenting seminars on various topics internally within GEAE.  Additional experience includes litigation and deposition experience, scanning electron microscope (SEM) operation and several shared years working Materials Application Engineering (MAE) for advanced military engines. Engine family lines familiar with include, GEAE military (J79, F110, F101, F118 and TF39), commercial (CF6, CFM56 and GE90) and industrial (LM2500 and LM5000) and military 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 has a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering, 1984 and an M.S. in Metallurgical Engineering, 1986 from the University of Cincinnati. He has completed and published Master's Thesis project 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.