PPI Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual, 14th Edition – Comprehensive Reference Manual for the NCEES PE Exam Fourteenth Edition

I passed the October 2015 Mechanical Engineering PE exam (I chose to take the Mechanical Systems and Materials in the afternoon), and I would like to share with you how I prepared for the exam. I did not enroll in a course, but I used the following four resources, all purchased on Amazon:(1) Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual for the PE Exam, 13th Ed(2) PE Exam Review for Mechanical Systems and Materials: PE Review Book for ME(3) PE Mechanical Engineering: Mechanical Systems and Materials Practice Exam(4) Six-Minute Solutions for Mechanical PE Exam Mechanical Systems and Materials Problems, 2nd EdThe first of these four resources, of which this review concerns, is by far the most essential. I repeatedly used Lindeburg's Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual during the actual test. While the other three resources were helpful, and I recommend that you purchase and use them, the Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual was by far the most helpful. Most of the chapters contain material that is "fair game" on the exam. You can compare what the exam covers versus the chapters in this book. You will notice that some chapters contain material that is no longer covered on the exam. I skipped these chapters. For the chapters that did contain material on the exam (which was a majority of the book), I read them completely, and I worked through all examples. Most example problems have solutions in both S.I. and U.S. systems, and this is helpful because the exam can use either system. I switched back and forth: if I solved one example problem using S.I., then I would solve the next using the U.S. system. Furthermore, to get extra studying time, I studied during my lunch break at work. I ate for about 15 minutes and studied for about 45 minutes. If you do this 5 days per week, then that is an extra 3.75 hours of study per week that you did not have to do at home. Plus, when you bring a really big book to work and read it, people will look and think you look really smart.I will also review the other three resources listed in this review. In my opinion, the afternoon exam is orders of magnitude harder than the morning exam, so prepare for the afternoon exam even more than the morning exam. Best of luck, I wish you well!

I took the April 2017 Mechanical Engineering Thermal and Fluid Systems exam...and passed! This is THE book to get if you are planning on taking the PE exam. After reading several reviews, I decided that the price was worth it, so I bought the reference manual itself, along with the accompanying question and answer soft cover book. I spent about seven months reading through the entirety of the book and performing about 95% of the study problems. I stayed away from most of the questions that said that they would take at least an hour to solve since I thought they would be outside the realm of what I would have to do on the exam. Granted, they are good if you have the time. All-in-all I used about 400 pages of engineering paper working problems out.I only solved the problems in English units, primarily because I felt more comfortable with SI, so I figured it wouldn't be that big of a stretch to solve an SI based problem. I also did not work out the problems from the Plant Operations and Management section, but I did read through those chapters. They did expose me to many aspects of Mechanical Engineering that I had little to no experience with, so it was definitely worth it from a learning perspective.Some reviewers have said to skip over the first 13 chapters since they are just background skills, but I did go through them and learned a thing or two along the way.I did end up taking a few extra books with me to the exam, although it was wholly unnecessary. I also printed out a few engineering codes that I was able to find online, but again I didn't need any of those. I would have been fine bringing only this book and a calculator. I thought that the morning session was actually pretty straight forward. The afternoon session was a bit more challenging, but I finished both sections with 45 minutes to an hour left on the clock. The extensive study beforehand really paid off.While the book does a great job of giving you usable equations, I would not recommend relying on just finding a "plug and chug" solution to every problem. If you understand how systems actually work, you can solve every problem relatively quickly. If you find yourself using an erf function, you're probably overthinking the solution.Bottom line, if you want to pass the exam with style, get this book.

Great preparation guide and a great general reference. Spend time with it before the exam so you know where everything (generally) is, and tab out the book so you know how to get to places you need to use. A good rule of thumb that I used was, any time I took a practice exam and used the MERM for a lookup, I stickynoted that page, knowing that I needed to tab it later.The book takes you back to first principles, and derives many of the equations you will need to find and use on the exam. It also rigorously uses constants of gravity in the USCS versions of equations. This may inspire you to needlessly divide a pound-force by a pound-mass just for the sake of clearing out units. However, this may be useful to you should gravity not be a constant in the particular problem you're working.It treated me well as my last-ditch effort to get an equation I needed - and in fact it saved my butt at least a couple of times. However, getting those equations to work for me took some trial and error because they weren't in the final form I needed to use.Cameron Hydraulic Data and the ASHRAE Pocket Guide may serve you better for equations that are ready to use right away. Cameron Hydraulic Data especially has a number of equations that you just insert your flowrate in GPM and your pipe size in inches, and out pops your velocity in FPM or your velocity head in feet. Shortcut equations, easy. Not a strong point of the MERM. I went into the test with Cameron, ASHRAE Pocket Guide, ASHRAE Handbook 4-pack, my favorite Thermodynamics textbook (Cengel & Boles 4e from college), Property Tables from Cengel and Boles, and about 20-30 pages of my own handwritten thermo, fluids and HVAC notes. That was enough, I don't think the MERM alone would have been.