DUE TO ITS EXCELLENT FABRIC-ABILITY AND DUCTILITY, THIS MATERIAL IS READILY AVAILABLE IN ALL DESIRED MILL PRODUCT FORMS.

It was discovered that the addition of 1% zirconium to niobium greatly improved the creep strength over the soft pure metal. Thus Nb-1Zr became the replacement for pure niobium in applications requiring the chemical resistance of niobium and a material with high melting temperature. In addition to greatly increasing the strength of pure niobium at higher temperatures, Nb-1Zr also has low thermal nuclear capture cross-section properties. Therefore, this alloy has been closely associated with the nuclear industry, which requires specified elevated temperature strength in the range of 1800º F to 2200º F. Because of the increasing need for better strengths, as technology has advanced, Nb-1Zr has been replaced by alloys such as C-103, which has greater strength and thus improved reliability, but still retains all the desirable characteristics of Nb-1Zr. Nb-1Zr has the advantage of being less expensive than the higher strength alloys, and can be used in applications where a high temperature material is needed with low loads such as a load free thermal shield.