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.
