Both in-process quality control and high reliability of the weld is one of the major concerns in applying friction welding to the economical and qualified mass-production. No reliable nondestructive monitoring method is available at present to determine the real-time evaluation of automatic production quality control for friction welding of special hydraulic valve spool of 16mm in diameter. This paper, so that, presents the experimental examinations and statistical quantitative analysis of the correlation between the initial cumulative counts of acoustic emission(AE) occurring during plastic deformation periods of the welding and the tensile strength and other properties of the welded joints of $phi16$ valve spool as well as the various welding variables, as a new approach which attempts finally to develop real-time quality monitoring system for friction welding.