PEC EPE Part-I cheat sheet

A profession is defined by specialised knowledge, a public-interest mandate, self-regulation, and a code of conduct; licensure protects the public, not the practitioner's commercial interest.

Core ethical duties: hold paramount public safety, health and welfare; practise only within one's competence; be objective and truthful in reports and testimony; disclose conflicts of interest; maintain confidentiality; avoid misrepresentation of qualifications.

Confidentiality exceptions override the duty to the client: imminent danger to life, safety or environment, statutory reporting duties, and court orders.

Conflict of interest test: does a reasonable observer perceive a personal, financial or family interest that could bias professional judgement? If yes, disclose in writing and withdraw where judgement is compromised.

Whistleblowing sequence: internal report to supervisor, then to higher authority, then to the regulator; escalation is justified when harm is serious, imminent and internal channels have failed.

Negligence requires four elements: a duty of care, a breach of the standard of care, causation, and actual damage. The standard of care is that of a reasonably competent professional at the time of the act.

Professional liability is generally individual; signing or sealing a document certifies personal responsibility for its content and cannot be delegated to the employer.

Gifts, hospitality and outside employment: accept only items of nominal value; paid endorsements of products or suppliers must be disclosed and cannot imply professional verification.

Public statements must be accurate and attributable; engineers may not use their title to promote commercial interests or make predictions outside their expertise.

Design margins: working stress must not exceed allowable stress = yield (or ultimate) strength divided by the factor of safety; ultimate strength governs brittle materials, yield governs ductile ones.

Beam relations: shear V = dM/dx; deflection from EI·d²y/dx² = M; maximum bending stress σ = Mc/I, with section modulus S = I/c.

Basic fluid flow: continuity A₁V₁ = A₂V₂; Bernoulli p/γ + V²/2g + z = constant along a streamline for steady, incompressible, frictionless flow; Darcy–Weisbach head loss h_f = f(L/D)(V²/2g).

Electrical fundamentals: Ohm's law V = IR; power P = VI = I²R; three-phase power P = √3·V_L·I_L·cosφ; per-unit impedance simplifies fault and load-flow calculations.

Thermodynamics: first law for a control volume Q − W = ΔH + ΔKE + ΔPE; Carnot efficiency η = 1 − T_cold/T_hot with absolute temperatures; entropy generation is zero only for reversible processes.

Control and instrumentation: closed-loop transfer function C/R = G/(1 + GH); stability by Routh–Hurwitz or Nyquist; steady-state error depends on system type and input class.

Materials and corrosion: galvanic corrosion occurs when dissimilar metals contact in an electrolyte; the anodic (more active) metal corrodes; avoid large cathode-to-anode area ratios.

Structural and geotechnical checks: bearing capacity and settlement are both serviceability requirements; slope stability expressed as factor of safety = resisting/sliding forces; liquefaction risk rises with loose saturated sands.

Standards are voluntary consensus documents until adopted by reference in law, contract or regulation; adoption converts them into enforceable requirements.

Hierarchy of authority: statute and regulation > contract documents > adopted standards > manufacturer recommendations and good practice guidance.

Codes are edition-dated; the governing edition is normally the one cited in the permit, contract or regulation at the time of design, not the latest published edition.

'Shall' denotes a mandatory requirement, 'should' a recommendation, and 'may' a permission; drawings and specifications must respect this distinction.

Design codes typically specify load combinations, resistance factors and serviceability limits; the load factors and resistance factors are calibrated as a pair and must not be mixed across code families.

Approval and inspection: permits, hold points and witness points must be agreed before construction; deviations require documented concession or variation approved by the authority having jurisdiction.

Health, safety and environmental regulation is enforced by statute regardless of contractual allocation; duties cannot be contracted out of, though liabilities can be indemnified.

Records and traceability: inspection and test plans, calibration certificates and as-built drawings are regulatory evidence; retention periods are set by statute or contract.

Copyright and data protection apply to drawings, software and personal data; licences and consent must be obtained before reuse or transfer.

Report structure: purpose and scope, background, methodology and assumptions, results, discussion, conclusions, recommendations, references and appendices.

Executive summary states the problem, method, key quantitative findings and recommendation in one page or less; it must be readable without the body text.

Technical writing rules: active voice, past tense for work performed, one idea per paragraph, SI units with a consistent number of decimal places, and defined symbols at first use.

Uncertainty reporting: state measurement uncertainty, confidence level and the source of constants or test data; distinguish measured, calculated and assumed values.

Recommendations must be traceable to evidence in the report and must state residual risk, limitations and required follow-up actions.

Referencing: cite every borrowed figure, table, equation, standard clause and data set; verbatim text requires quotation and attribution to avoid plagiarism.

Calculations must be reproducible: show inputs, governing equation, substitution and result with units, plus the software name, version and validation status where used.

Record keeping and document control: version number, author, checker, approver, date and revision history must appear on issued documents; superseded issues are withdrawn.

Professional review: independent checking of calculations and drawings is a competency requirement, and the checker must be competent in the same discipline.