Emission spectrochemical analysis of steels is considerably affected by their metallurgical conditions. As a guide for elimination of this harmful effect in the quantovac analysis, a study is made concerning the relation between microstructure and emission of steels.The obtained results are the following:
(1) The investigation of discharge craters showed that considerable preferential discharges occur on boundaries of crystal grains, inclusions and joined metals.Hence carbon spectrum line intensity varies by heat treatment of samples.The spectrum intensity of the internal standard line also varies to some extent by preferential discharges.
(2) Relation between erosion rate and chemical composition of carbon steel, alloy steel and stainless steel is expressed by respective linear equations which show that C, Mn, Ni promote the erosion and Si, Cr, Mo diminish it.