Abstract
Titanium and zirconium as elements are in the same group of periodic table and crystallize in the same crystalographic phases. While titanium and its alloys are due to their high specific strength utilized in aircraft industry and due to biocompatiblity in biomedicine, zirconium is used mainly in nuclear reactors as a fuel cladding due to its low cross section for neutron caption.
Metastable β-Ti alloys have unique mechanical and physical properties and are the most studied group of titanium alloys. Their phase transformations have been widely explored.
On the other hand, only α-zirconium alloys with low amount of solute elements have been studied and used. In this study, the knowledge of phase tranformations in metastable β-Ti alloys was used to study phase transitions in metastable β-Zr alloys.
In-situ methods such as resistivity measurements and synchrotron X-ray studies were applied in order to characterize phase transformations in Zr-(12-18)Nb alloys and, for comparison, in Ti-(12-18)Mo alloys. Despite similar qualitative behaviour quantitative differences were observed and discussed.