FE Exam Review – Converting Metric Units

Have you ever used KHDMDCM (King Henry Drank My Delicious Chocolate Milk) to convert metric units? Well, this is how I learned it and ONE way to learn it. There are some other acronyms, some are actually hilarious.

Instead of using the above KHDMDCM technique to convert metric units, we will make use of the table provided in the FE Reference Handbook on page. 1. The table looks something like this:

On the FE Exam we will be put under a serious time constraint. Before taking the FE Exam, our primary goal should be to know how to use the most important tool you are allowed to have during the exam: FE Reference Handbook. You can download the latest NCEES Handbook by creating a free account and downloading the PDF version for free. Make sure to download the latest version!

To clearly understand how to make use of the metric conversion table on page.1 in the FE Handbook, we must make some adjustments to the table by adding the “basic unit (grams, liters, meters, Pascal)” in the appropriate location and denote the change in multiple between each incremental step we move (whether it may be UP or DOWN). These adjustments are made as shown:

With the table adjusted, let’s actually look at some examples!

Let’s look at these two examples:

Example 1

\begin{equation}
\text { Convert } 1.24 \times 10^{-4} \text { grams to } \mu g
\end{equation}

\begin{equation}
1.24 \times 10^{-4} \div\left(10^{-6}\right)=124 \mu g
\end{equation}

OR

\begin{equation}
1.24 \times 10^{-4} \div\left(10^{-1} \times 10^{-1} \times 10^{-1} \times 10^{-3}\right)
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
1.24 \times 10^{-4} \div\left(10^{-6}\right)=124 \mu g
\end{equation}

Example 2

\begin{equation}
\text { Convert } 0.25 \mathrm{GPa} \text { to } \mathrm{kPa}
\end{equation}

\begin{equation}
0.25 G P a \times(1000 \times 1000)=250,000 k P a
\end{equation}

Knowing your units will be a crucial skill to master before taking your FE exam. We help our students master this skill through on demand video training specifically through our FE exam prep courses.