Porter R. Ritchie, M.S., P.E.

Mr. Porter Ritchie is a Senior Staff Consultant for ESi. Mr. Ritchie has over nine years of experience in failure analysis, metallurgy, and materials characterization. As a licensed metallurgical engineer within the energy industry, Mr. Ritchie has evaluated metallurgical issues involving pipeline infrastructure, refining equipment, and wind turbines.

Mr. Ritchie is skilled at using both nondestructive and destructive examination techniques to distinguish between various failure mechanisms such as corrosion, fatigue, stress corrosion cracking (SCC), hydrogen assisted cold cracking (HACC), and brittle or ductile overload. Additionally, he has experience with several characterization techniques including magnetic particle testing, fractography, metallography, optical microscopy, electrochemical testing, and hardness mapping.

Mr. Ritchie holds a Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering from the Ohio State University.  His graduate studies focused on materials degradation and weld metallurgy, specifically on the preferential corrosion of pipeline seam welds. His research contributed significantly to the understanding of selective seam weld corrosion (SSWC) of pipelines.