September 13, 2016 (Houston, TX) – Prime Photonics will be exhibiting and the 2016 Turbomachinery and Pump Symposia at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas). The Turbomachinery and Pump Symposia (TPS) is the premier training and networking opportunity for professionals in both pump, turbomachinery and related industries. In 2015, TPS attracted more than 5,500 people and 350 exhibiting companies from 48 countries.
September 19, 2016 (Blacksburg, VA) - Prime Photonics, LC has been awarded accreditation from SafeContractor, part of the Alcumus Group, the market-leading provider of technology-enabled compliance risk management, certification and verification services. SafeContractor accreditation involves rigorous auditing of procedures, policies, training and insurance coverage. The accreditation allows SafeContractor clients to know that Prime Photonics technicians and engineers performing work at their sites will perform to the highest health and safety performance standards.
September 12, 2016 (Dayton, OH) – Prime Photonics will exhibit and present at the 2016 Turbine Engine Technology Symposium (TETS). held Sept 12-15 in Dayton, Ohio. The TETS Symposium is a biennial forum where the United States' turbine engine community gathers to review and discuss the latest turbine engine technology advances. The Symposium draws an audience of approximately 1000 engineers, scientists, managers, and operational personnel from throughout the turbine engine community, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA, DARPA, DOE, FAA, engine and aircraft manufacturers, material and component suppliers, and academia.
July 5, 2016 – Blacksburg, VA – On Wednesday June 22, Steve Poland, Prime Photonics CEO, presented on “FOCIS™ Rotor Blade Health Monitoring” at the summer meeting of the Propulsion and Instrumentation Working Group (PIWG) held at the Ohio Aerospace Institute in Cleveland, OH. The presentation included a capabilities overview and development status of the FOCIS™-based engine health monitoring system being developed by Prime Photonics for Foreign Object Damage (FOD) detection, on-wing vibration monitoring and rotor blade crack detection. Mr. Poland also introduced a new project soon to be initiated with the US Army which will apply Prime Photonics’ patented FOCIS™-based Rotating Stall Detection technology to monitoring for stall/surge precursors in Army gas turbine engines. A member of the Steering and Advisory Board for PIWG, Prime Photonics will attend the September GTI 2016 joint PIWG/EVI-GTI conference in Berlin, Germany, where Malcolm Laing, Products Director, will present recent developments relating to hot section (turbine) FOCIS™ engine sensor testing.
January 20, 2016 – Blacksburg, VA – Prime Photonics FOCIS™ optical turbine sensors were discussed in the December 2015 issue of Photonics Spectra “With Fiber Comes Miles-Long and Multiplexed Sensors” along with a brief interview with CEO Steve Poland. A photo of Prime Photonics optical FOCIS™ engine probe is also featured on the cover.
July 13, 2015 – Blacksburg, VA – On Thursday, June 25, Prime Photonics was recognized by the United Way of Montgomery, Radford & Floyd for their support throughout the 2014-2015 campaign. Office Manager Haley Smith represented Prime Photonics at the awards luncheon where Prime Photonics received the Silver award in the Employee Campaign category.
April 9, 2015 – Blacksburg, VA – Last week at the 2015 Propulsion – Safety and Affordable Readiness Conference (P-SAR) held in Baltimore, Maryland, Prime Photonics presented the latest test results of its FOCIS™-based engine health monitoring system. In the presentation, “Blade Health Monitoring Using Multi-Function Optical Sensors”, Prime Photonics VP of R&D, Dr. Dan Kominsky, reviewed the foreign object damage (FOD) detection capabilities of the system which included testing on gas turbine rotors and blisks ranging from 6.5” to over 41” in diameter. The non-intrusive monitoring system uses FOCIS™ optical probes mounted on the engine casing to detect impact events and blade vibrations. Presented test results showed that in spin rig testing the system has successfully detected the occurrence of FOD events 100% of the time and correctly identified the impacted blade in over 90% of even non-damaging FOD events.
June 1, 2015 – Blacksburg, VA – John Goehrke, CEO of Centice, a leader in technology and systems for identification and verification of chemical substances, has joined the Prime Photonics Board of Managers cen. Previous to Centice, Mr. Goehrke was CEO at Nextreme Thermal Solutions, which was sold to Laird Technologies in February 2013. Other operational roles include CEO of siXis Inc., pioneers of advanced Silicon Circuit Board (SiCB) technology, COO of Luna Innovations, where he was part of the executive management team that successfully completed an Initial Public Offering, and CEO of Luna Technologies, a VC funded start-up spun out of Luna Innovations.
May 26, 2015 – Blacksburg, VA – Dr. David Gray, Prime Photonics Principal Scientist and New Technologies Team Leader, served as a judge at the 73rd Annual Virginia Junior Academy of Science (VJAS) Symposium at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA. At the VJAS event on May 21, Dr. Gray reviewed and judged written and oral presentations by middle and high school students from across the Commonwealth of Virginia. This is the second year Dr. Gray has supported VJAS by serving as a judge at the event.
May 18, 2015 – Blacksburg, VA - On April 30th, NASA announced the selection of their 2015 SBIR/STTR awards. Prime Photonics was selected for two awards out of only 50 nationwide. The New Technologies team, under Dr. David Gray, received both of the Prime Photonics award selections and will be working with Dr. John Duke of Virginia Tech to develop novel techniques to gauge residual useful life of structural components and Dr. Shashank Priya of the Center for Energy Harvesting Materials and Systems (CEHMS) of Virginia Tech to develop elevated temperature vibrational harvesters to enable wireless strain measurements for structural health monitoring applications.