# References for T&F



## Trev... P.E. (Jan 7, 2011)

I will be eligible to apply for the PE exam next month and I'm preparing my references early so I can be intimately familiar with them all this October. After some thought on which discipline I should choose, I'm leaning towards T&amp;F. My HVAC knowledge is not deep, and MERM doesn't appear to cover it well based on a quick page count, and MD was never my strength in school either although I was getting a knack for the FE level problems. I studied Mechanical &amp; Aerospace engineering in school and am now working in the pump industry so my fluids knowledge is pretty good. Thermo &amp; HT is a tad rough though, and that nearly killed me on the FE exam too... But I think it's the best choice. I am Australian, so never studied many of these topics in the I-P system, and expect some teething problems. That said, I have worked in the US for (one month shy of) four years now, so in many ways the US system is more intuitive these days due to my practical experience.

Due to my movements around the globe, I now have a 100 LB box full of college text books in SI units back in Australia, which is not economical (or possibly even useful) to send over, so I'm starting from scratch and would like some guidance. I have already started to snap up some references based on several threads on this forum as follows:


MERM &amp; practice problem book
3x SMS books
NCEES 2008 sample probs
Keenan &amp; Keyes '66 (I-P)
Keenan &amp; Kaye '57 (I-P)
ASHRAE Fundamentals 2005 (I-P)
Cameron hydraulic data (thanks to my previous employer)

So to those that have taken the tests, can you see any glaring holes in my bookcase?

I have read a lot about the Shigley's, Marks' &amp; Machinery Handbooks. What are each of these exactly? And are they helpful for the TF exam? Or more geared towards MD?

MERM mentions several other texts that I should have: Gas &amp; Steam tables in SI, TEMA standards, Roark's stress &amp; strain, NFPA standards... Are any of these useful?? Seems like a lot to drag in.

Finally, any college texts worth having? Fluids, Thermo, HT, Solids, Materials?

Appreciate any insights! :thankyou:

- Trev


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## navyasw02 (Jan 7, 2011)

Trev said:


> I will be eligible to apply for the PE exam next month and I'm preparing my references early so I can be intimately familiar with them all this October. After some thought on which discipline I should choose, I'm leaning towards T&amp;F. My HVAC knowledge is not deep, and MERM doesn't appear to cover it well based on a quick page count, and MD was never my strength in school either although I was getting a knack for the FE level problems. I studied Mechanical &amp; Aerospace engineering in school and am now working in the pump industry so my fluids knowledge is pretty good. Thermo &amp; HT is a tad rough though, and that nearly killed me on the FE exam too... But I think it's the best choice. I am Australian, so never studied many of these topics in the I-P system, and expect some teething problems. That said, I have worked in the US for (one month shy of) four years now, so in many ways the US system is more intuitive these days due to my practical experience.
> Due to my movements around the globe, I now have a 100 LB box full of college text books in SI units back in Australia, which is not economical (or possibly even useful) to send over, so I'm starting from scratch and would like some guidance. I have already started to snap up some references based on several threads on this forum as follows:
> 
> 
> ...


Honestly, I think you've got too much already. For studying go with the six min solutions, practice problems, and the merm. If you're doing TF, dont worry about Shigley's. I took White's Fluid Mechanics book, didnt need it, also took my Dicropera (sp?) Heat Transfer book and didnt need that either. The MERM is pleasantly good for just about everything you'll need for the T&amp;F.


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## MrAnderson41 (Jan 7, 2011)

Trev said:


> I will be eligible to apply for the PE exam next month and I'm preparing my references early so I can be intimately familiar with them all this October. After some thought on which discipline I should choose, I'm leaning towards T&amp;F. My HVAC knowledge is not deep, and MERM doesn't appear to cover it well based on a quick page count, and MD was never my strength in school either although I was getting a knack for the FE level problems. I studied Mechanical &amp; Aerospace engineering in school and am now working in the pump industry so my fluids knowledge is pretty good. Thermo &amp; HT is a tad rough though, and that nearly killed me on the FE exam too... But I think it's the best choice. I am Australian, so never studied many of these topics in the I-P system, and expect some teething problems. That said, I have worked in the US for (one month shy of) four years now, so in many ways the US system is more intuitive these days due to my practical experience.
> Due to my movements around the globe, I now have a 100 LB box full of college text books in SI units back in Australia, which is not economical (or possibly even useful) to send over, so I'm starting from scratch and would like some guidance. I have already started to snap up some references based on several threads on this forum as follows:
> 
> 
> ...


You are in very much the same situation I was in when starting to study (i.e. decent fluids and heat transfer background but not so great with thermo). I studied exclusively with the MERM and the MERM companion set of sample problems. I went through and studied the chapters of the MERM that Lindburg suggests and when I was doone with a chapter I worked the associated problems in the MERM companion. Once I was done going through the MERM I worked the sample exams the PPI sells.

To answer you're question regarding references, I took the MERM, the MERM companion, the PPI sample exams, and a copy of Crane Technical Paper 410. I think I agree with the other poster in this thread that you may have too many references already. I think the steam tables and Moellier diagrams in the MERM are sufficient. If you have a favorite source for these than I would probably bring those also. But other than your MERM and sample problems I'd bring your copy of Cameron. The only time I really opened Crane was a couple of times that I knew right what I was looking for and it was a little bit easier to read than the MERM but I really think I only used it on one or two problems and it was just because I liked the sections on the subjects in Crane better than I did MERM. I think both did an adequate job of covering the material though. My philoshpy is minimize the number of references and study with them so that way you know where to find stuff in the references.

This strategy worked out pretty good for me as I passed on the first time back in October. Let me know if there's anything else I can help with.


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## RobertR (Jan 10, 2011)

I found it useful to have a copy of the Keenan steam tables (English units), mainly because it reduced the need for interpolation (the MERM tables don't have much resolution). Also, I got 11 x 17 copies of the Mollier and Psychometric charts with _greatly_ increased resolution over the MERM charts. I put these in my own binder along with tabbed reference pages for commonly used equations and unit conversions. Doing these things saved me _time._

One other thing I took the time to do was program about 150 of the MERM equations into my HP calculator. I indexed them so I could access them quickly. This saved me considerable time on one problem in particular, which was computationally intensive. Since the calculator did all the "heavy lifting", it reduced the chance for error and saved TIME, which is a precious resource on the test. I actually finished the morning test 75 minutes early.

I passed.


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## Trev... P.E. (Jan 10, 2011)

Thanks for the comments guys. I bought the ASHRAE manual because I felt the MERM was a bit light on those topics, and given I've never worked in this area, it might be good to have a second source to fill the gaps, I bought the 2005 one dirt cheap off ebay, so it didn't break the bank. I think I will buy Marks' just to serve as a last resort should something out the blue be in the exam. It seems a few people used it on a question or two. I saw one for $40 on Amazon from an edition ago, so I think it's cheap insurance. I don't think I'll open either of these texts unless I finish everything and have some minutes to spare at the end.

The only other items I think I will add to my library is the 2001 NCEES sample exam should I be able to find it, and perhaps a unit conversion book, plus the print outs RobertR mentioned.

Appreciate the feedback &amp; ideas!

Trev


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## Clydeman (Jan 11, 2011)

You should be able to check out the 2001 NCEES Sample Test from a university library. That is what I did. Good luck trying to buy one (unless someone here is selling), as they go for quite a bit (at least from what I could tell searching online).

Definitely get the unit conversion book from Amazon. It is nicely laid out.

http://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Unit-Con...3193&amp;sr=8-1


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## navyasw02 (Jan 11, 2011)

Nathan Satter said:


> You should be able to check out the 2001 NCEES Sample Test from a university library. That is what I did. Good luck trying to buy one (unless someone here is selling), as they go for quite a bit (at least from what I could tell searching online).
> Definitely get the unit conversion book from Amazon. It is nicely laid out.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Unit-Con...3193&amp;sr=8-1


I was thinking about getting that, but I didnt feel it was necessary. There weren't any units that were particularly tricky. The most common was going from HP to KW and vice versa and going from gallons/min to cfm, but that's clearly laid out in the MERM in several spots and I just tabbed and highlighted it.

Edit - all the unit conversions you really need are in the back appendix anyway. Also there's a handy conversion appendix in the chapter 17 appendices that will save you a ton of time converting gallons to cfm etc.


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