In 2008 Scott Fratcher sat for his MEC3 marine engineer exams. He quickly
realized that even with 20 years in the field experience and doing his
engineering part in setting the "Round the world speedboat"
record the algebra portion of the exam was a killer!
What was needed was an alternative method of answering the exam questions
that did not revolve around algebra, but still answered the exam questions.
Scott found almost every question could be answered through
basic principles
maths
ratios
graphing
and a few specialty methods developed just for the tests.
Using these techniques Scott Fratcher finished his two hour exam in
under 45 minutes being the first candidate to leave the marine exam
room. Using these techniques Scott Fratcher scored 95% on his exam when
he only needed 60% for a passing score.
Scott put the systems used to pass the marine engineer exam together
into a new book that has helped engineers just like you to pass their
exams first time!
Scott Fratcher also covers how to get your first job and getting through
the STCW courses.
The questions listed here are of a general nature. They come from classes,
study groups, Internet searches and just about any other place where
a student can scrape together engineers test questions.
It should be noted that each test is different and each test is written
by a different examiner. The test is written from the syllabus and this
means anything could be asked in a test.
Still you should have a pretty good idea how to solve each of these
problems as they are straight out of the syllabus.
Remember to look at each question and in your practice answer-
make sure you answered the question and
found the trap.
Of course not every question has a trap, but most have at least one.
Remember these questions can be worked out as a group. Once you have
worked out a problem change the numbers and values just a bit and work
the problem again. Compare each others answers till you have a clear
method of arriving at the same answers.
2. A tank measuring 4x5x8 meters high contains oil at a RD of .988
up to the half way sounding. This oil is transferred to a completely
full cylindrical tank of height h meters and a diameter .5m. What force
and pressure act on the circular base of the cylindrical tank?
3. A ten meter long beam is simply supported at each end. At 4 meters
from the left hand end is a load of 25Kn and three meters from the other
end. Draw the space diagram and the shear force and the bending moment
diagrams, showing the necessary calculations.
4. The tractive resistance of a vehicle (force to overcome the friction,
tyre rolling resistance, etc) is 145 N/tonne. The vehicle is a 1.75
ton mass. What acceleration will be achieved by a force of 3Kn driving
effort?
5. A piece of metal of mass 4.2 kg at 135 degrees C is quenched in
an oil bath of 22 liters at 32 degrees C. Oil density is 853 kg/cub.m.
Specific heat for the oil is 3.77 Kj/kg K, and for the metal is 448
J/kg K. What is the final temperature of the oil and the metal?
6. A metal disk has a diameter of 3.4 m at zero degrees Celsius. Find
the area of the disc at 62 C. Linear coefficient of expansion is .0000118
per degree C.
7. An oxygen bottle with the volume of 5.5 cubic meters contains oxygen
at 132 bar absolute, and the temperature 25 degrees C. What is the volume
of gas at STP? And the mass of gas knowing that R+8311.3J/kg K ?
8. What is meant by Center of Buoyancy?
9. A rectangular tank measuring 3m x 5m x 9m high is filled with oil
of RD.903 to a heighth of .5 m up in the air vent. The floor plate is
supported on four longitudinal griders. Calculate the load on the bottom
plate and what is the load in kn on each girder?
10. An overhead gantry crane in the engine room has a total mass of
530 kg, supported on four wheels of 250mm diameter. If the coefficient
of friction between the wheels and tracks is .36. Calculate the following.
The frictional loss at each wheel. The total power to overcome this
loss, if the crane travels at 14 meters/minute.
11. If a ships crane just lifts a container off the warf, what would
happen to the center of gravity of the ship? Under what conditions would
the Transverse Metacentre (M) of a ship go below the Centre of Gravity?
12. A ship of 9000DWT takes in 200 tons of fuel oil (RD .953) shared
between two wing takes 12.8 meters above the keel. Calculate the vertical
change in the ships center of gravity above the keel.
13. Devine angular acceleration.
14. An engine driven alternator starts up from rest at 745 rpm in a
period of 2.5 minutes. Calculate the angular acceleration of the alternator,
and the total number of revolutions before it is up to rated speed.
15. Define velocity ratio.
16. A crane lifts a load of 25 tones up a height of 14 meters in four
minutes ignoring all losses, calculate power required to lift the load.
For an effort of 20.53 kn, what is the mechanical advantage? If the
system efficiency is 73%, what distance does the effort have to travel?
17. Give an example each of a shipboard use of an adiabatic process
and an isothermal process.
18. Use a sketch to show the sinoidial effect built in a generator.
Show all voltages, and currents.
19. For a bi-metallic temperature sensor, describe the operation with
the aid of a simple sketch.
20. For a metallic sphere with a radius of 14cm, what quantity of heat
is required to raise the temperature from 13c to 80c? Consider the metal
density as 18.02 gm/cm3 and specific heat as long as 105.5 J/Kg K.
21. A metal piece of mass 3.7 Kg at 1150 C is quenched into an oil
bath of 12 liters at 24C. The oil density is 889 Kg/m3. Find the final
temperature in C of both the oil and the metal piece, assuming the there
are no heat lossto the surroundings during the above process. Take specific
heat for oil as 3.77 KH/Kg K and the specific heat for metal as 442J/Kg
K.
22. A boiler burns fuel oil that is composed of 86.7% Carbon, 8,9%
Hydrogen, 3.5% Sulphur and the balance moisture. The Oxygen content
in air is 21%. Calculate the stoichiometric quantity of air necessary
to burn 1 Kg of fuel. And the total quantity of air/hour delivered to
burn 125 Kg/hr of fuel, if we know that the boiler is working with an
excess air coefficient of 1.75.
23. What is meant by ‘superheat’?
24. State one disadvantage and one advantage of having a small amount
of superheat for a refrigerant vapors entering the compressor suction.
25. Calculate the delivery pressure of an air conditioning system compressor
if we know that the polytropic compression process has an index of 1.21
and the following characteristics: Suction pressure 1.44bar, Suction
Volume 113 cm3 and delivery volume 23 cm3.
I found your info online and was hoping that with all your expertise
you could help me, I am also downloading your book
I was wondering if you could help me with the following.
I am a New Zealander currently employed as Chief Engineer on a big
yacht. I am going through the process of gaining my MCA Y4 chief engineers
ticket. From what I have gathered from others my Y4 ticket will not
be recognized outside Europe.
I was talking to another Chief Engineer last week and he was going
through the same issues and also looking into the possibility of doing
the NZ Engineering MEC3 ticket which he thought was not only
accepted but cross referenced to a relvent class with the MCA
What would your recommendations be considering that I will be coming
back to NZ to settle and would rather take the courses that make the
most sense for my future, although they need to be relevant to what
i
am doing over here at the same time ,
A ny ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.
I look forward to your response
kind Regards
Toby
Toby-This is a no brainier - Go to Auckland and take
the MEC3 course.
First being Kiwi you get reduced rates at class and can qualify for
student assistance.
Second and much more important, the MEC3 allows all the Y4 options
plus
tugs,
fish boats,
all types of ships (cargo, processing, tankers, coastal freighters,
etc)
research vessels,
teaching,
and a heap of other options that a Y4 simply does not include.
Consider, your into yachts right now, and that's good. Me too, I'm
captain of charter cat in the Pacific, but what if you get tired of
yachts, or the yacht market crashes? With an MEC3 you still have a heap
of options in the Marine world, while the Y4 guys will have to sell
their limited services to whatever yachts are still hiring.
Third- If you keep climbing the ladder of engineer certificates you'll
max out at Y1 in the yacht world, but an MEC1 has another level above
MEC1. I think it's called "ships supervisor", so if you find
you enjoy the classes you can continue to study for a long time.
Forth- Once you leave Europe the term Y4 engineer gets a lot of blank
stares. "A what?" I often hear. Same with an MEC3 in the yacht
world, but an MEC3 is an official STCW qualification. In other words
it's the lowest world wide accepted engineer's license (certificate).
If an employer does not recognize MEC3 simply use the STCW term of,
... don't quote me but I think it's iii/3. That is a world wide accepted
STCW qualification.
Last piece of advice - While your back getting your MEC3 take your
Yachtmaster Ocean course also. It allows you to be mate on the same
boats you engineer on and opens other options for you. The cat I'm on
now needed an engineer more than a captain as it's a highly technical
vessel, but if I did not have my Yachtmaster Ocean the insurance company
would have balked.
Working in Alaska we always took the engineers that had a deck license
first. Just in case we lost a deck officer we could switch crew and
keep the boat going till we could find a new mate.
Tip-On your next ocean passage have the mate pull out his sextant
and take a set of running sun sights and a sunrise compass course. Keep
careful notes and save the calculations. Make sure you get the ships
stamp on the pages. This will qualify for the "Ocean Sights"
part of your Ocean ticket meaning you'll only have to take the five
day course and your Yachtmaster Offshore will be quickly upgraded to
Ocean.
Hope this helped.
Thanks for asking and downloading the engineer exam book.
Regards
Scott Fratcher
Scott Fratcher bio
Scott Fratcher has 20 years marine engineer experience, a Certificate
of competency marine engineer third class and holds a RYA Yachtmaster
Ocean Commercial. Scott Fratcher served as Chief Engineer for the 2007
Earthrace round the world speedboat record attempt and consulted
for the 2008 record breaking performance.
Note-In the download version you can better read the
sketches and formula sheets
Come sail with us for a luxury vacation in 2010! Call
now.
Scott Fratcher's new book- How to pass your marine engineer exam contains
over 1000 exam questions.
That is one thousand marine engineer exam sample test questions!
Order the special report originally published in Tradeaboat magazine
in New Zealand. Scott Fratcher gives the secrets that have helped dozens
of new marine engineers find employment, many without a licence.
Scott Fratcher served as Chief Engineer of Earthrace for the 2007 record
attempt.
The smallest boat size that needs a licence marine engineer
At your marine engineer course you'll learn how to sketch
Marine engineer candidates waiting for results
A good marine engineer would have prevented this melted piston. That
is why we make the big bucks!
This turbo has to be fixed by a marine engineer
A Marine engineer took this heat exchanger apart
A marine engineer knows what these plates are for
A marine engineer drew this sketch
Tip-When taking the marine engineer exam be sure to have a way to make
quick sketches
This circle maker will help make your sketches fast for a timed exam
Tesla made this "Tesla Cage". Do you know what a Tesla measures?
You will at the end of your course
He passed his marine engineer exam
Look at the size of this bent piston rod compared to the shell bearing
it's laying upon
Just another engine for a marine engineer
A marine engineer candidate spends a lot of time with a scientific
calculator, if he wants to pass his marine engineer exam
It takes a good teacher to help his candidates pass
A marine engineer knows what each gauge does
A marine engineer knows how to sketch and how to calculate the sketches