The ECCOMAS Thematic Conference “Multibody Dynamics 2009” was held in Warsaw, representing the fourth edition of a series which began in Lisbon (2003), and was then continued in Madrid (2005) and Milan (2007), held under the auspices of the European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS).

The conference provided a forum for exchanging ideas and results of several topics related to computational methods and applications in multibody dynamics, through the participation of 219 scientists from 27 countries, mostly from Europe but also from America and Asia. This book contains the revised and extended versions of invited conference papers, reporting on the state-of-the-art in the advances of computational multibody models, from the theoretical developments to practical engineering applications. By providing a helpful overview of the most active areas and the recent efforts of many prominent research groups in the field of multibody dynamics, this book can be highly valuable for both experienced researches who want to keep updated with the latest developments in this field and researches approaching the field for the first time.