Distance Education Course Schedule
Spring 2024
Preregistration and registration information is available on the Distance Education Course Registration page.
Class Dates: January 8 – May 3
- 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 $3,051 per three-credit course.
In order to guarantee fall course enrollment:
- All NEW nondegree student applications and application fees or Resume Study nondegree student requests must be completed with The Graduate School no later than 5:00 p.m. (ET), Friday, December 15.
- All resume study DEGREE student requests must be completed with The Graduate School no later than 5:00 p.m. (ET), Tuesday, January 2.
Spring 2024 Distance Education Courses
- ACS 514: Electroacoustic Transducers
- ACS 515: Acoustics in Fluid Media
- ACS 542: Principles in Biomedical Ultrasound
- ACS 597: Advanced Signal Analysis for Acoustics and Vibration
- ACS 597: Outdoor Propagation of Sound
- ACS 597: Applications of Aero & Vibro-Acoustics
- AERSP 511: Aerodynamically Induced Noise
ACS 514: Electroacoustic Transducers
Instructor: Dr. Stephen Thompson
Class Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 9:05–10:20 a.m. (ET)
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,051.00
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. [Available as an online resource through the Penn State Library]
Software: MatLab (to request the free student license for MATHWORKS go to softwarerequest.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. Yun Jing
Class Time: Monday and Wednesday, 2:30–3:45 p.m. (ET)
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,051.00
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.
Texts: Acoustics: An Introduction to its Physical Principles and Applications, 3rd Ed., Allan D. Pierce, ASA Press/Springer, 2019. [free download from Penn State Library or E-textbook available through major booksellers]
Fundamentals of Physical Acoustics, Blackstock, David T., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000.
ACS 542: Principles in Biomedical Ultrasound
Instructor: Dr. Juli Simon
Class Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 1:35–2:50 p.m. (ET)
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,051.00
Recommended Prerequisite: ACS 502, Elements of Sound Waves in Fluids
Course Material: This course is designed for students interested in understanding the complex interactions of diagnostic and therapeutic ultrasound with cells, tissues, and organs. Fundamentals of linear and nonlinear acoustics wave propagation will be applied to biological specimens which scatter and attenuate ultrasounds waves in interesting ways. While tissues influence the acoustic wave propagation, the wave also induces bioeffects in the tissue through heat and/or cavitation to produce a therapeutic effect.
Text: Diagnostic Ultrasound Imaging: Inside Out, 2nd Ed., Thomas L. Szabo, Oxford: Academic Press, 2014. (Available online free from Penn State Libraries.)
Software: MatLab (to request the free student license for MATHWORKS go to softwarerequest.psu.edu)
ACS 597: Advanced Signal Analysis for Acoustics and Vibration
Instructor: Dr. Karl Reichard
Class Time: Monday and Wednesday, 8:30–9:45 a.m. (ET)
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,051.00
Prerequisite: ACS 503 or ACS 597, Signal Analysis for Acoustics and Vibrations. NOTE: This course replaces ACS 513, Digital Signal Processing. Students may enroll in this course if they have not taken ACS 513. Students who have previously taken ACS 513 may not enroll in this course.
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, and outdoor sound propagation.
Text: Instructor Notes
Text (Optional): Discrete-Time Signal Processing, 2nd Ed., Oppenheim, A.V., Schafer, R.W. & Buck, J.R., Prentice Hall. 1999.
Software: MatLab and MatLab Signal Processing Toolbox (to request the free student license for MATHWORKS go to softwarerequest.psu.edu) or Octave. Student versions acceptable.
ACS 597: Outdoor Propagation of Sound
Instructor: Dr. Vic Sparrow
Class Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 10:35–11:50 a.m. (ET)
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,051.00
Prerequisites: ACS 502 Elements of Sound Waves in Fluids or permission of the instructor.
Course Material: This course discusses outdoor sound propagation, where acoustics meets the great outdoors. The course will touch on a wide variety of outdoor scenarios, but the many topics will focus on propagation near the ground. The purpose of the course is to provide an overview of the theory and practice of outdoor sound. Outdoor sound propagation has applications in many areas but the dominant one is environmental noise prediction and control. Topics covered include: propagation over realistic ground surfaces; propagation with temperature gradients; propagation through turbulence; propagation over barriers and terrain; computational methods for outdoor sound; outdoor sound metrics; and typical experimental techniques for outdoor sound.
Text: Computational Atmospheric Acoustics, Erik M. Salomons, Kluwer Academic Publishers/Springer, 2001.
Software: MatLab and MatLab Signal Processing Toolbox (to request the free student license for MATHWORKS go to softwarerequest.psu.edu).
ACS 597: Applications of Aero & Vibro-Acoustics
Instructor: Dr. Dan Russell
Class Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 3:05–4:20 p.m. (ET)
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,051.00
Prerequisite: ACS 501, Elements of Acoustics and Vibration and ACS 502, Elements of Sound Waves in Fluids or permission of the instructor.
Course Material: An alternate name for this course would be “Acoustics of Musical Instruments.” This course will provide an in-depth study of the physics and acoustics of classical musical instruments, as explored through the generator-resonator-radiator model of an acoustic system. Topics will focus on the mechanisms of sound production by woodwinds (flutes, single-reed, double reed), brass winds (lip reed, cylindrical bore, conical bore), stringed instruments (plucked, struck, and bowed), and percussion (drums, marimba). However, while musical instruments will be the specific focus, many of the topics discussed have relevance to other areas of engineering, including nonlinear feedback, turbulence, disco-thermal losses, sound radiation from bells and horns, damping mechanisms, impedance measurements (structural and acoustic), and the coupling between acoustics and structural components. An understanding of the fundamentals of acoustics and vibration will be assumed as prerequisite for this course.
Text: Instructor Notes
AERSP 511: Aerodynamically Induced Noise
Instructor: Dr. Kenneth Brentner and Dr. Eric Greenwood
Class Time: Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 10:10–11:00 a.m. (ET)
Credits: 3
Tuition: $3,051.00
Prerequisite: ACS 501, Elements of Acoustics and Vibration and ACS 502, Elements of Sound Waves in Fluids
Course Material: This course includes a review of fluid mechanics and develops the general theory of aerodynamic sound. Applications include noise radiation from jets, boundary layers, rotors and fans. Additional topics include structural response to aerodynamically generated noise.
Optional Text: Aeroacoustics of Low Mach Number Flows, 2nd Edition, Stewart Glegg, William Davenport, Academic Press, 2023.
Fall 2024 Distance Education Course Schedule
Class Dates: August 26 - December 20
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 537: Noise Control Engineering
Credits: 3
Prerequisite: Undergraduate physics, differential equations and complex numbers
ACS 597: Computational Acoustics
Credits: 3
Prerequisite: Co-Requisite Registration: ACS 501, Elements of Acoustics and Vibration, and ACS 502, Elements of Sound Waves in Fluids.
ACS 597: Ocean/Underwater Acoustics
Credits: 3
Prerequisite: ACS 501, Elements of Acoustics and Vibration and ACS 502, Elements of Sound Waves in Fluids, or permission of the instructor.
