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24 Jun 2008 / 26 Jun 2008  -  Austria

euroLITE - International trade fair for lightweight design

Following the successful premiere event last year, growth is the name of the game for the 2nd international specialist trade fair for lightweight design: around 50 percent of the exhibition floor space used the previous year has already been assigned for the euroLITE 2008 exhibition to be held from 24-26 June 2008 in Salzburg (Austria).

The exhibitor stands, which cover all the aspects of lightweight construction, will be supplemented with a theme park dealing with "Joins and Connections". In addition, the Landshut Light Construction Cluster is again organising a three-day lightweight construction forum with presentations from the fields of design, materials and production technologies in German and English, which will be simultaneously interpreted.

Lightweight construction is one of the most important growth markets for the coming years. The potential is particularly significant in the automotive (road and rail), aerospace, mechanical engineering and boat and yacht construction industries. With this year's euroLITE concept, which is consistently and wholly oriented at the process chain of lightweight construction, the event organisers, H & K Messe GmbH and Salzburg Exhibition Centre (Messezentrum Salzburg), have fully met the requirements of the market. "The focus ranges from construction, design and simulation tools to materials, prototypes, metal forming and connection methods through to serial production of lightweight components and their tests", says Claus Hähnel, one of the CEOs of H & K Messe, describing the exhibition portfolio. This means the lightweight construction specialist trade fair is unique throughout Europe as a presentation, information and procurement platform for constructing engineers, development engineers, designers and buyers as well as decision-makers from the executive board and management. Exhibitors have also gained many good contacts and requests from the well-qualified visitors: "We basically just wanted to have a look at euroLITE 2007, and were very positively surprised. The quality of visitors here was certainly above average compared to other trade fairs. That's why we were able to make many new contacts", said Andreas Szadeczky, General Manager of Simulia - Abaqus Austria GmbH, which has already secured its place for the coming event, as have, for example, Voestalpine, Alcan Composites, Fronius, Schuler Hydroforming, Leightweight Structures and the ARC Leichtmetallkompetenzzentrum Ranshofen.

Joins and Connections – a big challenge in lightweight design
One of the biggest challenges in lightweight design and construction lies with the join and connection technologies used. Often, new material combinations cannot be connected using conventional solutions. At the same time, the weight advantage achieved through the use of lightweight materials must not be forfeited through the joining or connection process. That's why, in the automotive industry in particular, adhesive technology is increasingly replacing the more conventional joining and connection methods. On the one hand, its growing importance is due to the increasing use of lightweight materials to reduce CO2 emissions. But the safety of vehicles – key words here are crash resistance and rigidity – also plays an important role. Adhesive technologies are therefore also part of the euroLITE theme park "Joins and Connections". The focus of this special exhibition, however, is also on pressing and force fitting, joining through metal forming, welding, soldering and joining with connecting elements.

Bilingual lightweight construction forum
The main crowd pullers for euroLITE 2007 include the specialist presentations at the lightweight construction forum organised by the Landshut Light Construction Cluster. The three-day forum will be even bigger at this year's event. In addition to an extended range of presentations, it will also include simultaneous interpretation into German and English. The presentations will mainly focus on new developments and current trends in the fields of design, materials and production technologies for lightweight construction.

Source : H & K Messe GmbH and Salzburg Exhibition Centre