Here you go Duke:

http://www.ndt-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Ultrasonics/Introduction/description.htm

http://www.physics247.com/physics-tutorial/ultrasound-physics.shtml

Respectfully,
Henry

Look, You are being introduced to all sorts of new terminology in this first week. There will be this "what did I get myself into" feeling for a few days, but that should subside by the week's end. Just sit back and absorb as many of these terms as you can, and it will start to make better sense towards the end of the week. Once you get past all of this sound theory and start coupling a transducer to the material, it will start to come together and you'll see why you had to be subjected to all of the terminology early in the week.

Biggest thing you need to learn this week is how to get a good calibration on the IIW block. What I mean by this is, understand the signal(s) that you see on the screen so that you know where your sound is going and what to expect it to look like when you get that signal showing up on the screen.

Sure the first week is tough, but if you get over whelmed during this first week, take a break and use what you've learned this week and the next week will make a lot more sense, plus the math gets a bit tougher in week #2 when you get into angle beam testing. I took a few months inbetween Level I and Level II classroom instructions and I think it helped me not be so over whelmed with all of the new material being poured into my brain. Level II made so much more sense after I used what I learned in Level I for a little while. I'm still learning about bouncing sound and I have been doing this since Oct of 1999. These new UT machines have so many features now that it takes a while to get through all of these menus and understand what all of that stuff does and how it effects what you see on the screen. Be patient and give yourself some time for all of this new stuff to sink in and makes sense. I was right there where you are now in my first week at UT school, except I was sitting in Krautkramer's UT classroom instead of Hellier's....LOL

I think that you will probably get your moneys worth. I recently attended a Level I class. After 16 years off and on of "PLaying" with UT equipment for informational purposes and for making flaw samples, I had an opportunity to take the class.

Within the class was a quality manager with NO welding or NDE experience, 2  maintenance machininsts, a safety man and others. All from the same plant. Everyone passed. A few spent many hours studying and asking questions etc. They were intereted.

Daily quiz grades started a little low and everything picked up as the week went by. There were some that used the full time for the final exam.

They are all working on an automated as needed by the company. I was quite impressed by their progression through the class. The instructor did well adapting to the students needs even though there was an occasional visit to PA. football. (I'm not a football fan)

I think your concern can be overcome with some serious study. It should all be fine.

Gerald Austin

yes its really cool i am also looking for this.thank you for sharing with us.

I was looking through some old links in my favorites and ran across something that I had saved.....thought someone here in the forum might could use it or find it helpful understanding wave particle motion. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.
ie.
L-waves - particles move parallel to wave motion
T-waves - particles move perpendicular to wave motion

http://paws.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos/waves/wavemotion.html