It was discovered that the addition of 1% zirconium to niobium greatly improved the creep strength over the soft pure metal. Thus ATI Nb1Zr™ Alloy 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, ATI Nb1Zr™ Alloy also has low thermal nuclear capture cross-section properties. This alloy has been closely associated with the nuclear industry, which requires specified elevated temperature strength in the range of 1800° F to 2200° F. Because of the increasing need for better strengths, as technology has advanced, ATI Nb1Zr™ Alloy has been replaced in some applications by alloys such as ATI C103™ Alloy, which has greater strength and thus improved reliability, but still retains all the desirable characteristics of ATI Nb1Zr™ Alloy. ATI Nb1Zr™ Alloy 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 loadfree thermal shield. Due to the excellent fabricability and ductility, this material is readily available in all desired mill product forms.