Book excerpt: This book is intended to help the reader understand impact phenomena as a focused application of diverse topics such as rigid body dynamics, structural dynamics, contact and continuum mechanics, shock and vibration, wave propagation and material modelling. It emphasizes the need for a proper assessment of sophisticated experimental/computational tools promoted widely in contemporary design. A unique feature of the book is its presentation of several examples and exercises to aid further understanding of the physics and mathematics of impact process from first principles, in a way that is simple to follow.