Wood is one of 4 main structural materials that you are required to know for the SE exam or the structural depth portion of the PE exam. However, I was surprised to learn recently that some of my co-workers never even took a wood design class in college. For me, I did take a wood design class in college and studied the textbook Design of Wood Structures by Donald Breyer. It was an excellent and comprehensive textbook that pretty much can teach you everything you need to to know about wood design, but it was also over 800 pages long! If you are instead looking for a fast way to learn wood design or just simply refresh your memory of wood design for PE/SE exam, I have a perfect reference for you. It is only 48 pages long but it includes all of the equations, adjustment factors, and design examples that you need to know for the PE/SE exam. Bring this reference to the PE/SE exam and you will be golden for wood design!
So what is this reference? It is actually just a chapter in a review book. More specifically, it’s Chapter 6 of the PE Structural Reference Manual by PPI. This review book is a great resource in general, but Chapter 6 is its best chapter. I also personally think wood design (at least the non-seismic portion) is pretty intuitive and easy to learn so you can definitely self-study it. In fact, Chapter 6 of the PE Structural Reference Manual was written so you can start off with zero knowledge of wood design and steadily build up your knowledge of the subject as you make your way through the entire chapter. So why do I like Chapter 6 so much? There are 3 main reasons:
1) All Equations and Modification Factors are in One Place
The wood equations and modification factors that you need to know for the exam are of course in the NDS and NDS supplement. However, they are scattered throughout these two references and it is sometimes difficult and time consuming to flip back and forth between these references to chase them down. This is where Chapter 6 adds value for you. All the equations and modification factors are all in one compact place and they are presented in a logical order so that they can be found easily. In fact, you might find that you save time on the exam when relying exclusively on Chapter 6 to look up the equations and modification factors rather than flipping through the NDS references.
2) Excellent Summary Tables
The NDS has some good tables to help you with wood design, but Chapter 6 takes it to the next level in terms of helpfulness. For example, Table 6.1 in Chapter 6 summarizes which adjustment factor apply to which reference design values and whether this adjustment factor is applicable for sawn lumber or glulam. This table essentially combines many pages and tables in the NDS and compress them to half a page! There are many other helpful tables in Chapter 6 as well and I recommend you tab all those tables for the exam to save you time from having to flip through the NDS references.
3) Design Examples of How to Apply the Equations
For each wood topic, the equations and concepts are first presented and they are followed by a design example of how to apply the equations. The design examples in Chapter 6 are at the difficulty level of what you can expect on the actual exam but their solutions are easy to follow and understand. If you are at least mildly familiar with the subject, I suggest you try to solve the design example first and then look at the solution to see if you are right or wrong. This will enhance your understanding of the subject even more than just reading through the problems and solutions without attempting to think about how you would solve it first. These design examples are also very helpful during the actually exam because the concepts from the exam questions are sometimes so similar to the design examples in Chapter 6 that you can follow the steps in the design examples in Chapter 6 to solve the exam questions.
Conclusions
For the PE exam, I think Chapter 6 of the PE Structural Reference Manual should be enough of what you need to know regarding wood design for both the breadth and structural depth. For the SE exam, Chapter 6 should be good enough to get you through the Vertical portion of the exam. However, I think you will probably need to know a bit more regarding wood design for the Lateral portion of the SE exam (i.e collector, diaphragm, shearwall, etc..). The Design of Wood Structures textbook I mentioned earlier in this post is a good place to start if you want to learn more about seismic design for wood, but I also recommend you take an SE review class to shore up your wood knowledge for the Lateral portion of the test if you don’t already know this subject well.
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