Abstract : The method of least squares is applied to the problem of analyzing a decay record to determine the damping constants for a dry friction-viscous damped, single-degree-of-freedom system. Solution of the set of non-linear equations which yield the constants is obtained by applying the Newton-Raphson method of iteration. Sample calculations show that the method is not well suited for manual computation. A program is presented for calculating the damping constants by means of a digital computer.