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FUNDAMENTALS OF ENGINEERING

SUPPLIED-REFERENCE HANDBOOK
FIFTH EDITION

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 2001 by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying® .

FUNDAMENTALS OF ENGINEERING

SUPPLIED-REFERENCE HANDBOOK
FIFTH EDITIONPrepared by National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying® (NCEES®) 280 Seneca Creek Road P.O. Box 1686 Clemson, SC 29633-1686 Telephone: (800) 250-3196 Fax: (864) 654-6033 www.ncees.org

 2001 by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying® . All rights reserved. First edition 1996 Fifth edition 2001

FOREWORD
During its August 1991 Annual BusinessMeeting, the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) voted to make the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) examination an NCEES supplied-reference examination. Then during its August 1994 Annual Business Meeting, the NCEES voted to make the FE examination a discipline-specific examination. As a result of the 1994 vote, the FE examination was developed to test thelower-division subjects of a typical bachelor engineering degree program during the morning portion of the examination, and to test the upper-division subjects of a typical bachelor engineering degree program during the afternoon. The lower-division subjects refer to the first 90 semester credit hours (five semesters at 18 credit hours per semester) of engineering coursework. The upper-divisionsubjects refer to the remainder of the engineering coursework. Since engineers rely heavily on reference materials, the FE Supplied-Reference Handbook will be made available prior to the examination. The examinee may use this handbook while preparing for the examination. The handbook contains only reference formulas and tables; no example questions are included. Many commercially available bookscontain worked examples and sample questions. An examinee can also perform a self-test using one of the NCEES FE Sample Questions and Solutions books (a partial examination), which may be purchased by calling (800) 250-3196. The examinee is not allowed to bring reference material into the examination room. Another copy of the FE Supplied-Reference Handbook will be made available to eachexaminee in the room. When the examinee departs the examination room, the FE Supplied-Reference Handbook supplied in the room shall be returned to the examination proctors. The FE Supplied-Reference Handbook has been prepared to support the FE examination process. The FE Supplied-Reference Handbook is not designed to assist in all parts of the FE examination. For example, some of the basic theories,conversions, formulas, and definitions that examinees are expected to know have not been included. The FE Supplied-Reference Handbook may not include some special material required for the solution of a particular question. In such a situation, the required special information will be included in the question statement. DISCLAIMER: The NCEES in no event shall be liable for not providingreference material to support all the questions in the FE examination. In the interest of constant improvement, the NCEES reserves the right to revise and update the FE Supplied-Reference Handbook as it deems appropriate without informing interested parties. Each NCEES FE examination will be administered using the latest version of the FE SuppliedReference Handbook.

So that this handbook can bereused, PLEASE, at the examination site, DO NOT WRITE IN THIS HANDBOOK.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
UNITS ........................................................................................................................................ 1 CONVERSION FACTORS ............................................................................................................ 2 MATHEMATICS...