I recently received an interesting question:
While reading through the Fundamentals of Drilling Engineering book
(great recommendation, by the way---SO much better than the older
version!) I noticed the book recommends converting everything to SI, and
then when solving go back to field units. I think your guidebook has
most equations with constants to automatically solve in field units,
right? What is your recommendation as far as going back and forth? As a
ChemE used to doing tons of unit conversions, sometimes I am blown away
by the constants that magically turn the answer into the right units.
Interested to know your thoughts.
First, this reader is correct on the quality of the FDE book. It's clearly a big-time reference used for the PE Exam. If I could study only one book, it would be this one. It's a bit large to use for an exam reference (the Guidebook though has most of what you need from the FDE) but it's excellent to study from. Every engineer should read through it and know what's in it well.
To answer the question: this exam is a speed demon. Excess unit conversions should be ignored in nearly all situations except reservoir, where it makes sense to quickly convert units to whatever is familiar to you.
Sidenote: It's extremely hard (especially for good engineers) to "let go" of the precision and detail that's natural to them at work. Well, this PE Exam is not a "normal" situation. You are going to miss problems that would get you fired in real life due to the rush. Accept it. Get used to it. In fact, a large part of one's study plan should be practicing this "letting go", that is, of getting used to guessing on difficult problems long before they become a time sink. And most importantly, not letting this effect your positive mindset for the rest of the exam. Use timed, realistic practice exams to drive home this mental switch.
