Both in-process quality control and reliability of the weld is one of the major concerns is applying friction welding. No reliable nondestructive monitoring method is available at present to determine the weld quality particularly in process of production. So that, this paper presents an experimental examination and quantitative analysis for the effects of initial acoustic emission(AE) counts on the weld strength relating to the rotating speed as a new approach which attempts finally to develop an on-line quality monitoring system design for friction welds using AE techniques. As one of the important results, it was well confirmed that the initial AE counts occurring during plastic deformation period of welding were quantitatively correlated with reliability at 95% confidence level to the joint strength of welds, tube-to-tube (SM 20 C to STS 304) and then an AE technique using the initial AE counts can be reliably applied to in-process strength monitoring of the weld.