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General Materials Forum: Determination of Alloy Composition

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    • CommentAuthordongibbon
    • CommentTimeFeb 23rd 2007 edited
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    Engineers are commonly faced with a need to know what alloy has been used in a particular application, especially in cases where a part of unknown origin is to be exposed to severe conditions. Will it withstand those conditions? The answer is usually dependent on its composition. Quick and dirty field techniques, such as telling if it's stainless steel if it's non-magnetic, may not be sufficient, especially in critical applications. MATCO has recently acquired a NITON XLt x-ray fluoresence analyzer which does an amazing and quick job of solving such problems. Using an internal x-ray source (with "soft" x-rays having a very short path length in air) the "pistol-shaped" instrument is placed up against the piece of interest and in times on the order of 30 seconds, the LCD screen comes up with the analysis and the alloy identification. Higher-precision takes longer time, but 30-60 seconds is sually sufficient. Here's a comparison of the Niton analyzer with the Energy-dispersive spectrometer on our scanning electron microscope.

    Two samples were analyzed, first by Niton, then by EDS. The results were closely comparable:
    Sample A

    Fe: Niton 55.5 EDS 55
    Cr: Niton 24.4 EDS 27
    Ni: Niton 18.9 EDS 17
    Mn:Niton 00.4 EDS 01

    Alloy ID 310 SS

    Sample B

    Fe: Niton 71.4 EDS 73
    Cr: Niton 18.0 EDS 18
    Ni: Niton 08.2 EDS 08
    Mn:Niton 01.3 EDS 02

    Alloy ID 304 SS

    Note the higher precision of the Niton values. That's real.

    Wet-chemical analysis may now no longer be necessary in many cases. Call MATCO to see if we can help you.
    • CommentAuthordongibbon
    • CommentTimeFeb 23rd 2007 edited
     permalink
    Note that the Niton produces a much higher-precision analysis, but that's not always necessary. The EDS analyses in this case were restricted to the four most aundant elements, normalized to 100.
    • CommentAuthormshamsul
    • CommentTimeOct 1st 2007
     permalink
    Even the Ark Spark spectrotest can determine alloy composition too.

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