Zirconium alloys with only very low amount of alloying elements have been studied for application in nuclear industry before. As zirconium and titanium are in the same group of the periodic table and undergo the same phase transformations, a deep understanding of titanium alloys was used for studying phase transformations in metastable β zirconium alloy Zr12Nb.

For in-situ observations of phase transformations during heating, high energy synchrotron X-ray diffraction was used. In order to observe phase composition directly, ex-situ SEM and TEM observations were performed. At room temperature, β matrix with nanometer-scale ω phase particles was observed in a quenched alloy. During linear heating, above 400°C, the ω particles grow and stabilize while the surrounding β matrix changes its composition. At 560°C, ω phase particles dissolve suddenly and α phase starts to grow. As ω phase particles are larger and phenomena associated with them are more apparent in zirconium alloys compared to titanium alloys, some effects occurring in both titanium and zirconium alloys can also be explained by studying zirconium alloys.