International Conference on Magnesium very successful

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Materialkunde as the organiser of this long term series expects 300 – 350 participants. The Call for Papers that just reached its deadline has been very successful yielding 240 papers from 27 countries. Dominant topics are surface treatment and wrought alloys.

Proceeding from this large number of papers, there is every indication that the conference will excel those in 2006 and 2003. The conference language will be English.

The limitation of green house gases and the reduction of fuel consumption are still the major driving forces for the transportation industry to reduce weight. Magnesium is a prime candidate to meet weight requirements offering promising potential compared with other solutions based on aluminium, steel or polymers. Obviously, the potential is still subject to further research and development. Particular emphasis is put on the implementation of wrought alloys in the form of extrusion, sheet and forgings.

Improved processes like continuous casting and strip and twin-roller casting could enhance the use of wrought alloys. But also for cast products there are ongoing efforts to improve the mechanical properties and to introduce more economical processes. While high pressure die casting is still the predominant technology, the interest for advanced casting processes using semi solid technologies like thixomolding and rheocasting has increased.

While the programme committee under the chairmanship of Prof Karl Ulrich Kainer of GKSS is putting the lecture programme together, the organisers encourage the Magnesium community to submit abstracts even after the deadline. Increasingly, late papers will tend to become posters.

But the organisers will make extra efforts to attach much importance also to the poster programme by offering short oral presentations and by organising a poster prize competition. In the view of the difficult overall economic situation, these results predict a unique meeting of the worldwide Magnesium community.