Materials in Car Body Engineering 2009

German/ English simultaneous translation

18 - 19 May 2009
Bad Nauheim/Germany

The right mix

With CO₂-emission constraints in force, it is clear that the key materials question in innovative car body engineering is no longer "steel or aluminium?", but "How much of which material for which function and for which parts?". To answer this question, an alert monitoring and critical assessment of progresses in steel alloys and semi-finished products, from stainless steel to ultra high strength steels, including their practical usability, is mandatory - and the same is true for further developments in aluminium, magnesium and fibre reinforced plastics. Intelligent and cost-efficient lightweight design today requires a multi-material mix, the complexity of which will even increase in the future.

To nail down robust joining and production processes for such a material mix is only one of the problems raised by this complexity - others are worldwide material availabilities, strategies for car body modularisation and production flexibility.

Clearly, the goal is to tap the full potential of modern materials under these constraints, in order to find the right cost/functionality mix for a given vehicle and production concept.

Providing profound guidance in the decision-making process is the goal of the Automotive Circle International conference "Materials in Car Body Engineering", which presents trailblazing material-related developments in automotive lightweight design, with detailed progress reports from leading OEM as well as important system suppliers and research institutes. With this conference, the Automotive Circle International again gathers the leading international network of automotive engineers in Bad Nauheim to enable a high-level exchange of ideas and information on latest and future developments in car body material concepts.

The conference addresses:

Automotive engineers in pre-development, development and production with responsibilities for material-related questions, from important international OEM as well as their system suppliers and engineering service providers.

• Adam Opel AG
• Audi AG
• Daimler AG
• Superlight Car project consortium