The Metallurgy Division has carried out vacuum remelting of calcium reduced zirconium prepared by the Materials Laboratory at Y-12. Since zirconium is of interest to the Reactor Technology Division from the standpoint of corrosion resistance, some of the vacuum remélted metal was fabricated by forging and rolling to permit preparation of corrosion test samples.nWhile these experiments were very preliminary and limited in scope, it may be concluded that calcium reduced zirconium which is substantially free. of silicon may be fabricated by hot forging followed by cold rolling. Tests were made using Bureau of Mines zirconium and crystal bar zirconium as control samples indicate that the best calcium reduced zirconium prepared to date is about equivalent in rolling quality to Bureau of Mines zirconium which has been contaminated by repeated remelting in graphite. Hardness data and microstructural analysis of the various samples submitted are included in this report.
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