Categorizing the Embrittling Residuals in Engineering Alloys by Auger Electron Spectroscopy

Residual elements may affect adversely the performance of engineering alloys essentially through an ability to concentrate at grain boundaries and other interfaces during thermal treatment: at equilibrium, impurity species can concentrate to grain boundaries by factors as high as 10 000 times above the bulk level. In general, there is an associated reduction in grain boundary cohesion which may lead to certain well known forms of intergranular failure in metallurgical components.