According to a proposal made in 1974 by the Gesell- schaft fUr
Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik (GAMM) the General Assembly of the
International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) decided
in 1975 to sponsor an international symposium on "Dynamics of Multibody
Systems". A Scientific Committee has been appointed consisting of J.D.C.
Crisp, Australia, T.R. Kane, USA, D.M. Klimov, USSR, A.D. De Pater,
Netherlands, K. Magnus, Germany (chairman). This committee selected the
participants to be invited and the papers to be presented at the
symposium. As a result of this process 82 active scientific partici-
pants from 15 countries followed the invitation and 29 papers were
presented. They are collected in this volume. At the symposium an
additional presentation was delivered: Mrs. E. Gottzein introduced and
ex- plained a recently completed scientific movie on mag- netic
levitated vehicles. The aim of the symposium was the exchange of ideas
and the discussion of methods and results in the field of Multibody
Dynamics. This has been achieved by a really efficient scientific and
social progr m, organ- ized for the six symposium days by a Local
Organizing Committee. Members of this Committee were: S. Ballout, M.
Lippmann, P.C. MUller, W.O. Schiehlen, G. Schweitzer, E. Truckenbrodt,
K. Magnus (chair- man) and members of the staff of the Institute of
Mechanics.