The concepts of rigid body or particle dynamics are used in engineering when motion is involved. This can be motion of a fluid element, a controller such as a flap or landing gear mechanism, and trajectories of vehicles.

It is important that the principles of dynamics are well understood by engineers. An engineering problem can be thought of as a word problem, similar to word problems solved in mathematics. Dynamics provides the basics by which the equations of motions that govern the problem can be derived and applied.