Advanced designs in engineering are determined by demands in trends towards high functionality, minimum weight, high safety requirements, sustainability and minimized costs. These general requirements can be fulfilled by the use of new and multi-material hybrid design concepts and advanced stress analysis methods. This requires the development and optimization of advanced joining methods as the key technology for the new design concepts.  These advanced joining methods are valid for all modern representative ruling technologies like power generation, automotive, aerospace, environment control, telecommunication etc.
The realization of the new designs requires a better understanding of the impact of the production and joining processes on the material properties and the service behavior.
The main requirements and challenges of the realization of advanced designs are:
-joining of dissimilar materials that are generally difficult to combine
-optimization of mechanical and functional properties (i.e. strength and corrosion resistance of the joint)
-the development, optimization and application of novel joining and welding processes for new designs and material combinations
-development of optimized materials to overcome insufficient service behavior of welded components
-the use of quantified toughness concepts in combination with new non-destructive testing (NDT) concepts which allow failure safe service
-the increase of lifetime by special treatment of the joints
-the replacement of traditionally used joining processes by other or new processes.
In order to produce satisfactory solutions to these requirements, an intensive cooperation and understanding between the engineers responsible for design - materials - joining process and service behavior is needed.
Examples of the application of the new concepts will be given for the following topics: sheet joining in the automotive industry, joining of steel to aluminum, high strength steel joining for penstocks, use of friction welding processes for heavy sections, friction stir welding of steel and aluminum, and optimized creep resistant 9-12% Cr steels for thermal power plants.