The INALCO 2010 Conference “New Frontiers in Light Metals” is the eleventh in a series of aluminium conferences organised since 1979. It will consist of keynote lectures by invited speakers as well as oral presentations of papers submitted by attendees.

The 1st International Conference of welded products and constructions with aluminium alloys was held at Cleveland, USA in 1979 and established as INALCO at the 2nd conference held in Munich, Germany in 1982. Since then these conferences have been held every 3 years at different locations all over the world.

With the 2010 INALCO Conference “New Frontiers in Light Metals” we want to emphasize the many challenges that face the industry today and the creative and innovative solutions that are developed by the industry and the research institutes to remain competitive in the light metals world that is becoming more global every year. We have also widened the scope of the conference by including contributions on magnesium technology.

The programme of the 3 day conference consists of two plenary sessions and 12 parallel sessions. The topics of the parallel sessions are:

• Advanced Joining

• Materials Technology

• Surface

• Architecture

• Structural Design

• Transport & Automotive

In connection with the conference programme an exhibition of new developments is organised. Furthermore an excursion programme is added to the programme to give exposure to interesting aluminium applications in the Netherlands. The proceedings of INALCO 2010 will be available both on CD and in print at the start of the conference.

The symposium committee gratefully acknowledge the support of the many sponsors and exhibitors to make the symposium possible. As symposium chairmen we would like to acknowledge in particular Messrs Rein van de Velde and Rudolf de Ruijter for their enthusiastic support in planning and organising the conference. Also the cooperation of the members of the symposium committee has been very fruitful in identifying relevant new technical areas and potential contributors.

Finally I would like to gratefully acknowledge the speakers and authors for their contributions to make the symposium a success.

Prof. Laurens Katgerman, Symposium Chairman, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands

Prof. Frans Soetens, Symposium Chairman, Department of Architecture, Building and Planning, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands