Abstract: The influence of glow-discharge parameters (including the discharge current,discharge voltage,time of pre-burning and time of analysis) on the discharge intensity and stability in the atomic emission spectrometric analysis of cast iron was studied by using some standard samples as analytes.Through optimization of the glow-discharge parameters,a rapid method of glow-discharge-AES for the simultaneous determination of 12 elements in cast iron was established.The results of the elements determined (besides carbon) were found to be in consistency with the standard values or the values obtained by chemical methods.Low results of carbon were obtained in the analysis of grey cast iron samples,but the deviation was reduced by adjusting the conditions of sample preparation and the glow-discharge parameters,and results of carbon content with tolerable uncertainty were obtained for most grey cast iron sample but not for nodular cast iron samples.The time for analysis of one sample took only 2 to 5 min.