Book excerpt: The performance, safety and stability of machines depends largely on their design, manufacturing and interaction with environment. Machine foundations should be designed in such a way that the dynamic forces transmitted to the soil through the foundation, eliminating all potentially harmful forces. This handbook is designed primarily for the practising engineers engaged in design of machine foundations. It covers basic fundamentals for understanding and evaluating dynamic response of machine foundation systems with emphasis is on detailed dynamic analysis for response evaulation. Use of commercially available Finite Element packages, for analysis and design of the foundation, is recommended. Theory is supported by results from practice in the form of examples.