Analysis of Carburized Steels by Glow Discharge Spectroscopy: Carbon in the Hardened Case and More

Precise measurement of carbon in carburized steel can be challenging due to changing concentrations throughout the hardened case of a sample. Glow discharge spectroscopy (GDS) offers a repeatable ability to measure carbon in a region spatially discrete from organic carbon on the near surface and in the base material. The presentation includes comparisons to other measurements, relationships to microhardness measurements, and characterization of the materials with GDS compositional depth profiles and bulk analyses.