Preparation and Certification of some types of Steel Alloy Reference Materials

Abstract

Certified reference materials (CRMs) are versatile tools to support quality, correctness and credibility of measurement results. They are used to provide the traceability of the measurement results to the SI unit. In the present work, seven low alloy steel and three high alloy steel reference materials were developed by the national institute of standards (NIS), Egypt. Homogeneity of the developed RMs was studied by x-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF) and atomic emission spectrometer and the results proved that the RMs were homogeneous enough. Characterization of reference materials composition was performed by different independent analytical methods; gravimetric, XRF, optical emission and atomic absorption spectrometry in different laboratories. The assigned values of the mass fractions of the various elements of the alloys and their associated uncertainty were calculated by the weighted mean approach.

Keywords: Low alloy steel, high alloy steel, Homogeneity, Reference materials, Traceability