Steve is our Air Conditioning Instructor for the DTC Mechanical PE Exam Review courses. Steve is an experienced instructor who has been teaching HVAC and energy related courses for over 20 years at NCSU and around the United States.

Hello,

I’m Steve Terry, a Mechanical Engineer who has been working with industrial energy systems since 1992. My work has primarily been at NC State University where I ran the Industrial Assessment Center, a program that consults with manufacturers to help them save energy and to teach students about energy engineering. A big part of these assessments is HVAC – from small packaged units to huge chilled water systems.

For the Mechanical PE Exam, the HVAC discipline involves many of the same components as the thermal fluids systems but approaches many of these topics with a different viewpoint. Rather than using precise relations, HVAC engineers often use approximate relations and rules of thumb. For the review class, we will show both the rigorous methods to explain the physics of the processes, and the rules of thumb that can speed up calculations on the exam without compromising accuracy.  

The course will focus on psychrometrics, HVAC processes, cooling and heating load calculations, and HVAC system components. Doing well on the PE exam depends on your ability to understand the flows going in and out, sort through the given information, and determine the relation or relations needed to solve for the requested values.  

– Steve

Stephen holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University and is a licensed Professional Engineer in North Carolina.  He is a Research Associate Professor in the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at NC State, and is Director of the NCSU Industrial Assessment Center, performing energy assessments at over 700 manufacturing plants. He teaches a variety of courses in the MAE Department, including Thermal Systems Design, Energy Conservation in Industry, and Air Conditioning. He has also taught classes for the US Department of Energy on Steam Systems. He performs research into Energy Storage Systems and has published over two dozen research papers.