This book contains the edited version of the lectures presented at the NATO ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTE on "COMPUTER AIDED ANALYSIS OF RIGID AND FLEXIBLE MECHANICAL SYSTEMS". held in Troia. Portugal. from the 27 June to 9 July. 1993. and organized by the Instituto de Engenharia Mecanica. Instituto Superior Tecnico. This ASI addressed the state-of-art in the field of multibody dynamics. which is now a well developed subject with a great variety of formalisms. methods and principles. Ninety five participants. from twenty countries. representing academia. industry. government and research institutions attended this Institute. This contributed greatly to the success of the Institute since it encouraged the interchange of experiences between leading scientists and young scholars and promoted discussions that helped to generate new ideas and to defme directions of research and future developments. The full program of the Institute included also contributed presentations made by participants where different topics have been explored. Such topics include: formulations and numerical aspects in rigid and flexible mechanical systems; object-oriented paradigms; optimal design and synthesis; robotics; kinematics; path planning; control; impact dynamics; and several application oriented developments in weapon systems. vehicles and crash worthiness. These papers have been revised and will be published by Kluwer in a special issue of the Journal of Nonlinear Dynamics and in a forthcoming companion book. This book brings together. in a tutorial and review manner. a comprehensive summary of current work and is therefore suitable for a wide range of interests.

I - Methods in Rigid Multibody Dynamics.- Constrained Multibody Dynamics.- Construction of the Equations of Motion for Multibody Dynamics Using Point and Joint Coordinates.- Dynamics of Multibody Systems with Minimal Coordinates.- Symbolic Computations in Multibody Systems.- On-Line Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems.- Topological Description of Articulated Systems.- II - Dynamics of Flexible Mechanical Systems.- Flexibility in Multibody Dynamics With Applications to Crashworthiness.- Finite Element Modelling Concepts in Multibody Dynamics.- Kinematic and Dynamic Simulation of Rigid and Flexible Systems With Fully Cartesian Coordinates.- Computer Implementation of Flexible Multibody Equations.- Flexibility Effects in Multibody Systems.- III - Kinematic Aspects of Multibody Systems.- On Twist and Wrench Generators and Annihilators.- Application of Computer Aided Kinematics to Modelling of Contacts in Robotic Manipulation.- IV - Computational Issues and Numerical Methods.- Reduction of Multibody Simulation Time by Appropriate Formulation of Dynamical System Equations.- Computational Challenges in Mechanical Systems Simulation.- Numerical Integration of Second Order Differential-Algebraic Systems in Flexible Mechanism Dynamics.- V - Man/Machine Interaction and Virtual Prototyping.- Dynamic Simulation for Vehicle Virtual Prototyping.- Man/Machine Interaction Dynamics and Performance Analysis, Biomechanics and NDISCOS Multibody Equations.