Structural Steel Design Guide

You could do what our Steel I students are forced to do: create your own sheet(s), summarizing design procedures for anything that'll be on the exam. This could be done in a page or two. Then take your other material (AISC Manual, textbooks, etc.) in case you need them.

Yea, I already have a few crib sheets. Think I'm just getting burnt out and have a daunting task of self teaching myself AASHTO and Prestress within the next month. My superiors are unfortunately no help.

Luckily the Strl I isn't very difficult overall. If you know the basics, then you have a good chance. When I took this test in 99, I didn't even try to do bridges. Back then, bridges was only 1/8 of the exam, though. Why they make bridges & bldgs in the same test is beyond me. The Strl II is much more logical in that regard.

Does anyone know how much of the exam is dedicated to bridges now? Some in my office have told me that there is ALOT of bridge quesitons on the exam.

20% of bridge design will be on the SE1 exam.

20% is insane, but one of my pals said the same thing. It was only 1/8 back in 98 when I took it.

I know they exist, but I don't personally know a single person who designs both. Heck, I'd probably still just ignore brides if I had it to do over again, and take my chances with not losing more than 10 pts on everything else. Would've worked the first time I took it.

Boiler8019, sorry to hear your superiors are no help. I know your original post was regarding steel, but I think mentioning the significance of studying bridges is important. zestructural is correct, the test is 20% bridges. Unfortunately, if you're like me, your job is probably 0% bridges! I just passed the SE1 this past October, and I devoted a considerable amount of study time to the AASHTO. There are probably more bridge questions than steel, or any other individual material for that matter. If you "get to know" the AASHTO code, where things are, how to calculate loads including wind, & seismic, etc, most of the bridge questions are easy. The ones that were not, were the first to be skipped.

Good luck!

Thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately, I dont think just knowing the basics will get you through anymore. There's some pretty detailed questions in a lot of the practice question materials i'm going through.

My friend who just took it in October said the 20% bridge designation was just a rough guide and in actuality for the October test was more along the lines of 35%. I hope it reverses for the April test.

If AASHTO werent $350 and 1000 pages long I wouldnt be as chapped about learning something I'll never be able to perform.