Book excerpt: Computational techniques for the analysis and design of structural dynamic systems using numerical methods have been the focus of an enormous amount of research for several decades. In general, the numerical methods utilized to solve these problems include two phases: (a) spatial discretization by either the finite element method (FEM) or the finite difference method (FDM), and (b) solution of systems of time dependent second-order ordinary differential equations. In addition, the significantly powerful advances in computer systems capabilities have put on the desks of structural systems designers enormous computing power either by means of increasingly effective computer workstations or else through PCs (personal computers), whose increasing power has succeeded in marginalizing the computational power differences between PCs and workstations in many cases. This volume is a comprehensive treatment of the issues involved in computational techniques in structural dynamic systems.