The author developed this text over many years, teaching graduate courses in advanced dynamics and flexible multibody dynamics at the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The book presents a unified treatment of rigid body dynamics, analytical dynamics, constrained dynamics, and flexible multibody dynamics. A comprehensive review of numerical tools used to enforce both holonomic and nonholonomic constraints is presented. Advanced topics such as Maggi¿s, index-1, null space, and Udwadia and Kalabäs formulations are presented because of their fundamental importance in multibody dynamics. Methodologies for the parameterization of rotation and motion are discussed and contrasted. Geometrically exact beams and shells formulations, which have become the standard in flexible multibody dynamics, are presented and numerical aspects of their finite element implementation detailed. Methodologies for the direct solution ofthe index-3 differential-algebraic equations characteristic of constrained multibody systems are presented. It is shown that with the help of proper scaling procedures, such equations are not more difficult to integrate than ordinary differential equations.

This book is illustrated with numerous examples and should prove valuable to both students and researchers in the fields of rigid and flexible multibody dynamics.

Part I: Basic tools and concepts: 1. Vectors and tensors.- 2. Coordinate Systems.- 3. Basic Principles.- 4. The Geometric Description of Rotation.- Part II: Rigid Body Dynamics: 5. Kinematics of Rigid Bodies.- 6. Kinetics of Rigid Bodies.- Part III: Concepts of Analytical Dynamics: 7. Basic Concepts of Analytical Dynamics.- 8. Variational and Energy Principles.- Part IV: Constrained Dynamical Systems: 9. Constrained Systems: Preliminaries.- 10. Constrained Systems: classical formulations.- 11. Constrained systems: advanced formulations.- 12. Constrained systems: numerical methods.- Part V: Parameterization of rotation and motion: 13. Parameterization of rotation.- 14. Parameterization of motion.- Part VI: Flexible multibody dynamics: 15. Flexible multibody systems: preliminaries.- 16. Formulation of flexible elements.- 17. Finite element tools.- 18. Mathematical tools.- References.- Index.

Olivier Bauchau teaches and conducts research in the fields of structural dynamics, multibody dynamics, experimental dynamics, and mechanics of advanced composite materials and structures. He was educated at Université de l'Etat à Liège (Belgium), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. He has worked as a researcher at St. Gobain Récherches in Paris, France and as associate professor at the department of Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering, and Mechanics at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, before settling as a professor at the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Faculty responsibilities include teaching of graduate and undergraduate courses, and conducting research in the fields of structural dynamics, multibody dynamics, experimental dynamics, and mechanics of advanced composite materials and structures.

Professor Bauchau is an Engineering Consultant with United Technologies Research Center in Hartford, CT.; Sikorsky Aircraft in Stratford, CT.;  Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth, TX.; NASA Ames Research Center in Moffet Field, CA; NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA; Advanced Rotorcraft Technology Inc. in Mountain View, CA.; Materials Technologies Corporation in Monroe, CT.

His fields of expertise include teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of Theory of Structures, Strength of Materials, Advanced Structural Analysis, Design with Composite Materials, Aeroelasticity, Finite Element Methodologies, Engineering Mechanics, Structural Dynamics, Machine Dynamics, and Engineering Laboratories, as well as conducting research in the areas of Finite Element Methods for Structural and Multibody Dynamics, Experimental Mechanics and Dynamics, and the Design and Manufacturing of Composite Materials and Structures.