  We have developed a systematic procedure to study the disks in Algol-type
binaries using spectroscopic analysis, synthetic spectra, and tomography. We
analyzed 119 H-alpha spectra of TT Hya, an Algol-type eclipsing interacting
binary, collected from 1985-2001. The new radial velocities enabled us to
derive reliable orbital elements, including a small non-zero eccentricity, and
to improve the accuracy of the absolute dimensions of the system. High
resolution IUE spectra were also analyzed to study the formation of the
ultraviolet lines and continuum. Synthetic spectra of the iron curtain using
our new shellspec program enabled us to derive a characteristic disk
temperature of 7000K. We have demonstrated that the UV emission lines seen
during total primary eclipse cannot originate from the accretion disk, but most
likely arise from a hotter disk-stream interaction region.
  The synthetic spectra of the stars, disk, and stream allowed us to derive a
lower limit to the mass transfer rate of 2e-10 solar masses per year. Doppler
tomography of the observed H-alpha profiles revealed a distinct accretion disk.
The difference spectra produced by subtracting the synthetic spectra of the
stars resulted in an image of the disk, which virtually disappeared once the
composite synthetic spectra of the stars and disk were used to calculate the
difference spectra. An intensity enhancement of the resulting tomogram revealed
images of the gas stream and an emission arc. We successfully modeled the gas
stream using shellspec and associated the emission arc with an asymmetry in the
accretion disk.
