James F. Doyle is a Professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University. His main area of research is in experimental mechanics with an emphasis on the development of a new methodology for analyzing impact and wave propagation in complicated structures. The goal is to be able to extract the complete description of the wave and the dynamic system from limited experimental data. Special emphasis is placed on solving inverse problems by integrating experimental methods with computation methods (primarily finite element-based methods). He is a dedicated teacher and pedagogical innovator. He is the winner of the Frocht Award for Teaching and the Hetenyi Award for Research, both from the Society for Experimental Mechanics. Professor Doyle is a Fellow of the Society for Experimental Mechanics. This is his fifth book, after Propagation in Structures, 2nd edition, Static and Dynamic Analysis of Structures, Nonlinear Analysis of Thin-Walled Structures, and Modern Experimental Stress Analysis. He is the co-editor (with R. Al-Kouri) of The Spectral Element Method.