Distance Education Course Schedule
Spring 2025
Preregistration and registration information is available on the Distance Education Course Registration page.
Class Dates: January 13 – May 9
- All classes video streamed and archived for review
- All courses available for credit or audit
Tuition Fee: Credit or Audit
Tuition (including IT fee) is $3,081.00 for a 3-credit course.
To guarantee fall course enrollment:
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All new non-degree student applications and application fees or Resume Study non-degree student requests must be completed with the J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Graduate School no later than 5:00 p.m. (ET), Friday, January 3.
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All resume study degree student requests must be completed with the Fox Graduate School no later than 5:00 p.m. (ET), Monday, January 6.
Spring 2025 Distance Education Courses
- ACS 514: Electroacoustic Transducers
- ACS 515: Acoustics in Fluid Media
- ACS 521: Stress Waves in Solids
- ACS 523: Advanced Signal Analysis
- ACS 551: Spatial Sound and 3-D Audio
- ACS 597: Acoustic Functional Materials
- ACS 597: Noise Control Applications
ACS 514: Electroacoustic Transducers
Instructor: Dr. Stephen Thompson
Class Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 9:05–10:20 a.m. ET
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,081
Prerequisite: Undergraduate physics, basic linear circuit theory, differential equations, and complex numbers. Must have working knowledge of required software.
Course Material: This course covers derivation and discussion of the fundamental operating characteristics of transducers for acoustics and for vibration. Acoustic transducers will include microphones, loudspeakers, and underwater hydrophones and projectors.
Text: Instructor Notes
Reference Text: Acoustics: Sound Fields, Transducers and Vibration, Beranek and Mellow. [Free download available through the Penn State Library]
Software: Matlab or Matlab Student Version, available at weblabs.psu.edu, Octave, Python, MathCad, or Mathematica (student versions acceptable for all packages). Student must have a working knowledge of one of these software tools prior to taking this course.
ACS 515: Acoustics in Fluid Media
Instructor: Dr. Dan Russell
Class Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 10:35–11:50 a.m. ET
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,081
Recommended Prerequisite: ACS 502, Elements of Sound Waves in Fluids
Course Material: This course focuses on acoustic radiation and scattering. Finite sources, superposition of simple sources, free space Green's functions, dipoles and quadrupoles, multipole expansion, Kirchhoff-Helmholtz integral theorem, Rayleigh integral, radiation and scattering from cylinders and spheres, diffraction, sound sources in ducts, cavities, and rooms, and reciprocity.
Text: Acoustics: An Introduction to its Physical Principles and Applications, 3rd Ed., Allan D. Pierce, ASA Press/Springer, 2019. [Free download available through the Penn State Library or E-textbook available through major booksellers]
Fundamentals of Physical Acoustics, Blackstock, David T., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000.
ACS 521: Stress Waves in Solids
Instructor: Dr. Cliff Lissenden
Class Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 1:35–2:50 p.m. ET
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,081
Prerequisite: Undergraduate physics, differential equations, and complex numbers.
Course Description: Recent advances in Ultrasonic Nondestructive Evaluation; waves; reflection and refraction; horizontal shear; multi-layer structures; stress; viscoelastic media; testing principles.
Objectives: Ultrasonic waves in solid media are extremely important for nondestructive evaluation, inspection, and testing (NDE, NDI, NDT) to characterize materials and defects such as corrosion, fatigue cracks, and disbonds. They also find uses in a variety of applications including medical imaging and treatment, seismology, welding, electronics, and impact analysis. In this course you will (1) describe wave propagation physically, (2) mathematically describe stress wave propagation and (3) use transducers to generate and receive stress waves in solids. Thus, experiments and demonstrations are a key component of the course. The solids might be unbounded or bounded (e.g., a half plane, rod, plate, pipe, multilayered) and could be isotropic or anisotropic and elastic or viscoelastic. Dispersive waves in bounded wave guides are a substantial portion of the course.
Text: Ultrasonic Guided Waves in Solids, J.L. Rose, 2014. [Free download available through the Penn State Library.].
ACS 523: Advanced Signal Analysis
Instructor: Dr. Karl Reichard
Class Time: Monday and Wednesday, 8:30–9:45 a.m. ET
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,081
Prerequisite: ACS 503 Signal Analysis for Acoustics and Vibrations.
Course Material: This course is concerned with the time and frequency-domain analysis of discrete-time signals and discrete-time linear systems, with an emphasis on developing and applying analysis techniques with applications in acoustics and vibrations. Topics covered include: a review of time and frequency-domain representations of systems; the analysis and design of IIR and FIR digital filters; time-frequency analysis; signal detection and classification; and signal modulation. Possible application topics include vibration and modal analysis, machinery and structural health and condition monitoring, source localization and classification.
Text: Instructor Notes
Software: MatLab and MatLab Signal Processing Toolbox (Matlab or Matlab Student Version, available at weblabs.psu.edu ) or Octave. Student versions acceptable.
ACS 551: Spatial Sound and 3D Audio
Instructor: Dr. Vic Sparrow
Class Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 3:05–4:20 p.m. ET
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,081
Prerequisite: Class pre-requisites include some familiarity with basic acoustics. Previous enrollment in an Acoustics course is desirable. Students are expected to be familiar with undergraduate physics, differential equations and complex numbers.
Course Material: This course is an overview of recent developments in virtual acoustics (also known as 3-D sound, 3-D audio, binaural audio, or spatialized sound). The course pulls from many subdisciplines of acoustics including psychoacoustics, physical acoustics, signal processing, active acoustic control, architectural acoustics, audio engineering and computational acoustics. Topics to be covered include: Head related transfer functions (HRTFs); elements of psychoacoustics for 3-D sound; the "stereo dipole"; auralization (including reverberation effects); virtual acoustic systems; cross talk cancellation; Ambisonics; wave field synthesis; multi-channel audio; object-based audio for spatial sound, height channels and applications.
Texts: Immersive Sound: The art and science of binaural and multi-channel audio, 2018, A.Roginska and P. Geluso, Routledge, New York.
Spatial Sound: Principles and Applications, 2023, Bosun Xie, CRC Press, New York.
ACS 597: Acoustic Functional Materials
Instructor: Dr. Yun Jing
Class Time: Monday and Wednesday, 2:30–3:45 p.m. ET
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,081.00
Prerequisites: ACS 502 Elements of Sound Waves in Fluids or permission of the instructor.
Course Material: This course explores the latest advancements in the rapidly growing field of acoustic functional materials. Students will develop a deep understanding of the fundamental physics underlying the interaction between mechanical waves and engineered materials, such as phononic crystals, acoustic metamaterials, and metasurfaces. The course will cover novel behaviors of mechanical waves and their diverse applications. Students will also learn to model acoustic functional materials using both analytical methods (e.g., coupled-mode theory) and numerical techniques (e.g., finite element method). Key topics include: the fundamentals of acoustic waves, acoustic waves in periodic media, phononic crystals, acoustic metamaterials and metasurfaces, acoustic resonances, and acoustic analogs of condensed matter physics, such as topological and non-Hermitian acoustics.
Text: Phononic Crystals, Vincent Laude, 2nd edition, 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. [Free download available through the Penn State Library.]
Software: Matlab or Matlab Student Version, available at weblabs.psu.edu and COMSOL available through Penn State.
ACS 597: Noise Control Applications
Instructor: Dr. Tyler Dare
Class Time: Monday and Wednesday, 1:00–2:15 p.m. ET
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,081
Prerequisite: This course does not have prerequisites, However, is intended to generally be taken after ACS 537 – Noise Control Engineering. Students with industry or acoustical consulting backgrounds can be successful in this course if they have not taken ACS 537.
Course Material: This course focuses on applications in noise control engineering. The course is split into two main overlapping themes: advanced measurement methods and machinery noise control. The advanced measurement methods will cover topics such as sound intensity, sound power, sound quality, impedance and transmission loss tubes, and coherent output power. The machinery noise control topics include noise generation and control from systems such as gears, pulleys, fans, HVAC systems, muffler systems, and rotating machinery.
Texts: Engineering Noise Control, Bies, Hansen, Howard, and Hansen, 5th or 6th edition.
Software: Working knowledge of (MATLAB, Octave, OR Python) AND Microsoft Excel.
Fall 2025 Distance Education Course Schedule
Class Dates: August 25 – December 19
Tentative Course Offering
(Suggestions can be sent to acousticsde@psu.edu.)
ACS 501: Elements of Acoustics and Vibration
Credits: 3
Prerequisite: Undergraduate physics, differential equations and complex numbers.
ACS 502: Elements of Sound Waves in Fluids
Credits: 3
Prerequisite: Undergraduate physics and differential equations
ACS 503: Signal Analysis for Acoustics and Vibration
Credits: 3
Prerequisite: Undergraduate physics, differential equations and complex numbers
ACS 524: Transducers 2
Credits: 3
Prerequisite: ACS 501, Elements of Acoustics and Vibration, ACS 502, Elements of Sound Waves in Fluids and 514 Electroacoustic Transducers
ACS 540: Nonlinear Acoustics
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: ACS 502, Elements of Sound Waves in Fluids, or instructor approval
ACS 597: Sound Quality and Psychoacoustics
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
ACS 894: M ENG Capstone
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: 24-26 course credits earned toward the M ENG degree
