Within the last decade magnesium alloys have gained access to many application fields. Their favourable property profile - high specific strength, good workability, recyclability - promote an increased usage. Still, the full potential of magnesium as a structural material has not been achieved. The relatively high cost of primary magnesium and a limited variety of suit-able magnesium alloys restricted the further propagation until today. Additionally, the component design deserves special requirements and study for the implementation of magnesium alloys to new, advanced applications.

A number of research efforts have been undertaken both from universities and industry to improve alloy properties and processing routes. While a number of applications of magnesium alloys can be found as housings for electronic devices and for the communication industries, the automotive industry is still the main driving force to increase the amount of magnesium based components for weight reduction and therefore for a reduction of fuel consumption and CO2 emission. One of the recent spectacular results, showing the efforts to reduce fuel consump-tion, is the so called 1-litre-car developed by Volkswagen. It contains 35 kg of standard cast and wrought magnesium alloys (total weight 260 kg). Due to past developments especially alloys for service temperatures up to 150 °C are available on the market and an increase in use of magnesium alloys especially for power train applications can be expected. Moreover the situation for wrought alloys is also going to change due to efforts to develop new alloys and to optimise the entire process chain especially for wrought materials and related processes.

After its successful initiation in 2002 this international seminar will again be held presenting todays state of the art in magnesium technology and research. The main focus will be on alloy properties, production processes for cast and wrought magnesium alloys as well as on corrosion behaviour and surface protection making it therefore especially relevant for engineers and executives who are involved in development and production. The presentations will be given by experts from industry as well as research institutes.