The International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) initiated and sponsored an International Symposium on Nonlinear Dynamics in Engineering Systems held in 1989 in Stuttgart, FRG. The Symposium was intended to bring together scientists working in different fields of dynamics to exchange ideas and to discuss new trends with special emphasis on nonlinear dynamics in engineering systems. A Scientific Committee was appointed by the Bureau of IUTAM with the following members: S. Arimoto (Japan), F.L. Chernousko (USSR), P.J. Holmes (USA), C.S. Hsu (USA), G. looss (France), F.C. Moon (USA), W. Schiehlen (FRG), Chairman, G. Schmidt (GDR), W. Szemplinska-Stupnicka (Poland), J.M.T. Thompson (UK), H. Troger (Austria). This committee selected the participants to be invited and the papers to be presented at the Symposium. As a result of this procedure 78 active scientific participants from 22 countries followed the invitation, and 44 papers were presented in lecture and poster sessions. They are collected in this volume. At the Symposium an exhibition with experiments took place and the movie "An Introduction to the Analysis of Chaotic Dynamics" by E.J. Kreuzer et.al. was presented. The scientific lectures were devoted to the following topics: o Dynamic Structural Engineering Problems, o Analysis of Nonlinear Dynamic Systems, o Bifurcation Problems, o Chaotic Dynamics and Control Problems, o Miscellaneous Problems, o Experimental and Theoretical Investigations, o Chaotic Oscillations of Engineering Systems, o Characterization of Nonlinear Dynamic Systems, o Nonlinear Stochastic Systems.
