I have obtained EDX graph for my work material (after machining) which shows many peaks with reference to its constituents. Apart from the base material constituents, there are also additional constituents seen. Do these peaks indicate the % weight composition after machining?
Are there any good manuals/help books for understanding the EDX graphs?
EDX or EDS is energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. It is a characterisation technique that provides elemental composition of various constituent elements in a material. The abscissa of the EDX spectrum indicates the ionization energy and ordinate indicates the counts. Higher the counts of a particular element, higher will be its presence at that point or area of interest.
You can display the amount of each element in number of counts or in weight percentage. Depending on how good the equipment is, the readings of elements may not be accurate enough for quantitative analysis. But it should be able to indicate the existence of certain materials in the area. What kind of information are you looking to find out?
Thanks @Sunny Zafar
I am able to see presence of some elements which are not part of the base material. Does it indicate the possibility of element transfer during machining or is it the resultant of tool and workpiece?
Thanks @Xiaobing Feng
I have drilled microholes on workmaterial through EDM process. Holes are split holes and now I am checking the surface composition after machining.
Yes, there may be a possibility of elemental transfer from tool to workpiece during machining.
Hi Shivraj. If you found metal elements consistent with tool electrode material, it usually suggests material transfer. If you'd like further evidence, you could try to find the particles of interest in the SEM and take another reading on the particle itself instead of a broad area. That should provide definitive indication.
Hi Shivraj,
Check on this site as well. It gives an elaborate explanation on how you can read EDS graphs.
http://www.seallabs.com/how-sem-eds-works.html
Hi Shivraj
Apart from elemntal transfer from tool to workpiece, dielectric fluid(EDM) may also be able to stick with workpiece due to spark and high temperature.
There are also cases when peaks overlap or wrong detection occurs. This is sometimes due to calibration issues, and routinely because of atom structures. The measurement is done from the K,L,M,N shells of an atom. It happens that K-alpha radiation of one element is spuriously close to L radiation from another. The mistake happens because of resolution. You can refer to Newbury's explanation which I have attached.
Article Blunders in Automatic Qualitative Analysis (Peak Identificat...
During EDM process, the material transfer may take place from electrode, dielectric decomposition, and intermediate compounds formed with reaction with atm gases, and composiitonal elements of elecrode and workpiece.
what i recommend is you should also check the presence of intermediate compounds using EDS/EDX.
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