As a building engineer, it has never made sense to me why the SE exam requires so much bridge knowledge (wouldn’t it make more sense to have a Building SE license and a Bridge SE license?). Thankfully, building engineers will only need to know the bridge questions for the morning section of the exam. From personal experience and what I hear from others, there are definitely enough bridge questions on the test that you will need to get at least some of them right to have a chance of passing the exam. Some of these bridge questions will require an in depth understanding of the subject, but there are also plenty of bridge questions you can get right by knowing and understanding some relatively simple bridge concepts. The goal of this post is to position you to at least get a good shot at getting the simple bridge questions right.
- Get the AASHTO Specification
This is important. Given the amount of bridge questions, it would be almost impossible to pass the SE if you don’t bring this reference to the test or if you are opening this reference for the first time on test day (yep, I have heard people say exactly these things on test day). According to the NCEES website, the current AASHTO edition for this test cycle is:
AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications, 7th Edition
I suggest finding out if your workplace has this reference or ask your friends if they can lend you a copy to study and bring to the test. If not, you can buy this reference on AASHTO’s website or on Amazon with the link above.
- Read Through and Familiarize Yourself with the AASHTO Specifications
Yes, this Specifications is intimidating with the shear quantity of information in it. However, take a little bit of time to read through it. If you want to save time, focus on the first four chapters of the Specifications. See below for a list of some (but not all) important concepts in each chapter that you should at least have an understanding of to help build a foundation for your understanding of bridge design.
Chapter 1:
Limit States
Chapter 2:
Criteria for Deflections
Chapter 3 (most important chapter):
Load Factors and Load Combinations
Dead Loads
Live Loads (truck and tandem)
Lane Definitions
Design Lane Load
Multiple Presence of Live Load
Dynamic Load Allowance
Fatigue and Fracture Considerations
Pedestrian Loads
Centrifugal Force (CE)
Braking Force (BR)
Vehicle Collision Force (CT)
Wind Loads (WL and WS)
Earthquake Loads (EQ)
Chapter 4 (second most important chapter):
Moment Distribution for Interior and Exterior Girders
Shear Distribution for Interior and Exterior Girders
Calculating Kg
Lever Rule
- Get More In-Depth Understanding of the Subject
This step is somewhat concurrent and can be interchangeable with Step 2. I recommend working through Chapter 9: Bridge Design of the PE Structural Reference Manual by Alan Williams. This chapter really does a great job in laying out step-by-step of how to solve bridge problems and explains the concepts well.
Additionally, you can study the Bridge Problems for the Structural Engineering (SE) Exam by David Connor PE, SE (3rd Edition). It contains 80 multiple choice bridge questions with detailed solutions for both Vertical and Lateral Components of the SE exam. What I especially like about this study reference is that it is specifically written for the “building” structural engineer that do not work on bridges for a living and only need to know the essential concepts of bridge design for the SE Exam. This recently updated 3rd edition references AASHTO 8th Edition which is the current edition for the SE exam.
- Do Sample Problems
In addition to the Bridge Problems for the Structural Engineering (SE) Exam by David Connor PE, SE (3rd Edition), here are a few other places with some good sample questions for you to try to work through:
PE Structural Reference Manual by Alan Williams: Do the problems at the end of each study section of Chapter 9 and the additional 11 sample problems in Chapter 17 & 18. I recommend doing the problems first before looking at the solutions.
Structural Engineering Practice Exam from NCEES: I highly recommend buying this practice test. You can buy it from the NCEES website or Amazon. This practice test is from the official test writers so the questions are bound to be very similar to what you might find on the actual test. I recommend you do the bridge morning questions as part of your “mock test,” meaning that you should devote one whole day (8 hours) to take either an entire vertical or lateral practice test. If you want to do problems outside of the mock test, try doing the PM bridge problems from this practice exam. They are actually quite good in helping you see the big picture since it’s an entire problem broken down into several parts. I especially like question 702 because it brings a bunch of bridge concepts together. If you can do question 702 one time without looking at the answers in advance and understand what you are doing, then you are well on your way to doing well for the morning session bridge questions.
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I want to end this post by emphasizing that this post is meant to will give you ideas of how to jump start your study for the bridge questions on the SE exam, not to teach you how to be a bridge design expert.