This volume provides the international multibody dynamics community with an up-to-date view on the state of the art in this rapidly growing field of research which now plays a central role in the modeling, analysis, simulation and optimization of mechanical systems in a variety of fields and for a wide range of industrial applications.

This book contains selected contributions delivered at the ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Multibody Dynamics, which was held in Brussels, Belgium and organized by the Université catholique de Louvain, from 4th to 7th July 2011.  Each paper reflects the State-of-Art in the application of Multibody Dynamics to different areas of engineering. They are enlarged and revised versions of the communications, which were enhanced in terms of self-containment and tutorial quality by the authors. The result is a comprehensive text that constitutes a valuable reference for researchers and design engineers which helps to appraise the potential for the application of multibody dynamics methodologies to a wide range of areas of scientific and engineering relevance.