This article briefly discusses the annealing practices for refractory metals such as tungsten, molybdenum, niobium, tantalum, and rhenium and their alloys. It also presents the applications and properties of these metals and their alloys.

This article focuses on the forging characteristics of different types of refractory metals and alloys, namely, niobium and niobium alloys, molybdenum and molybdenum alloys, tantalum and tantalum alloys, and tungsten and tungsten alloys.

For chemical processing, niobium resists a wide variety of corrosive environments, including mineral acids, many organic acids, liquid metals, and most salt solutions. This article focuses on the mechanisms of corrosion resistance of niobium alloys in these environments. The niobium alloys include Nb-1Zr, Nb-55Ti, Nb-50Ta, and Nb-40Ta. The article describes the use of these corrosion resistant niobium alloys, and provides information on applications of niobium in various industries.

Superconductors are materials that exhibit a complete disappearance of electrical resistivity on lowering the temperature below the critical temperature. A superconducting material must exhibit perfect diamagnetism, that is, the complete exclusion of an applied magnetic field from the bulk of the superconductor. Superconducting materials that have received the most attention are niobium-titanium superconductors (the most widely used superconductor), A15 compounds (in which class the important ordered intermetallic Nb3Sn lies), ternary molybdenum chalcogenides (Chevrel phases), and high-temperature ceramic superconductors. This article provides an overview of basic principles of superconductors and the different classes of superconducting materials and their general characteristics.

Niobium-titanium alloys (NbTi) became the superconductors of choice in the early 1960s, providing a viable alternative to the A-15 compounds and less ductile alloys of niobium-zirconium. This can be attributed to the relative ease of fabrication, better electrical properties, and greater compatibility with copper stabilizing materials. This article discusses the ramifications of design requirements, selection criteria and processing methods of superconducting fibers and matrix materials. It provides information on the various steps involved in the fabrication of superconducting composites, including assembly, welding, isostatic compaction, extrusion, wire drawing, twisting, and final sizing. The article also provides a detailed account of the properties and applications of NbTi superconducting composites.