In this guide
Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with IStructE before applying.
The examiners assess both your choice of principal structural elements and how far you check each one.
Choosing five to seven principal elements
Select elements that govern the scheme, following the categories in the instructions. For buildings, these may include trusses, portal frames, arches, transfer and transition members, cantilevers, heavily loaded vertical members, stability members, foundations, retaining walls or a special element unique to the proposal. Foundation examples include piles, pile caps, reinforced rafts, pads and balancing beams.
For bridges, consider the deck, main deck support, vertical structure, stability system and foundations, including piles, pile caps and reinforced pads.
Avoiding repetitive calculations
The instructions state: "Repetitive and simple calculations are not required". Check the governing case for each principal element. Multiple load cases and repeated designs of typical members are unnecessary; preserve time for transfer structures and foundations.
Identifying additional checks
Bending, shear and a span/depth deflection check form the baseline for most members. Identify where more is needed and explain why. Examples include web buckling under a concentrated load, lateral-torsional buckling, punching shear, retaining-wall sliding or overturning, uplift and local transfer effects. You need not complete every additional check to show that you recognise it; identify the governing issue and demonstrate the relevant check.
Keeping calculations readable
Clarity is a marking criterion in a section worth over a fifth of the paper. Use a headed page for each element, state loading and sources, show the load path to the foundation, highlight the governing size and check, and record assumptions where they are used.
Working through the calculations section
- 01
List your principal structural elements first
Five to seven, chosen because they are structurally decisive in your scheme. Write the list down: it is both a plan and a statement to the marker that the choice was deliberate.
- 02
State loading and assumptions once, at the top
Including any loadings other than those specified in the question, and the codes you are working to. Doing it once saves repeating it and satisfies the instruction to state assumptions.
- 03
Take the load path down in order
Roof or deck, then floors, then the vertical structure, then the foundations. A marker following the load path can credit each step; a set of disconnected element checks is harder to follow.
- 04
Check the worst case properly, not every case lightly
Bending, shear and a span/depth deflection check for most members. No requirement for multiple load cases, and repetitive or simple calculations are not required.
- 05
Name the extra check where one governs
Web buckling under a point load, lateral-torsional buckling, punching shear, uplift, overturning. Say why it governs here: that recognition is where the additional marks are.
- 06
Add the carbon as you finish each element
Mass times embodied carbon factor, while the sizing is in front of you. Coming back to it at the end is slower and often gets dropped.
In the calculations
Look for
- Box the governing result for each element
- Head each page with the element and where it sits
- State the source of any design guide or manufacturer's data you use
- Keep one element per page so a marker can follow
- Include the foundations: they are named in the instructions
Watch for
- Design every beam in the building
- Run load cases the question does not need
- Use a design guide as your primary source of member sizing
- Leave assumptions unstated
- Spend calculation time needed for drawings
Official sources
Selected publisher pages were rechecked in September 2026. Other source records were last checked in July 2026. Open the latest official document before relying on a requirement.