Deformation mechanisms, defects, heat treatment, and thermal conductivity in large grain niobium

The physical and mechanical metallurgy underlying fabrication of large grain cavities for superconducting radio frequency accelerators is summarized, based on research of 1) grain orientations in ingots, 2) a metallurgical assessment of processing a large grain single cell cavity and a tube, 3) assessment of slip behavior of single crystal tensile samples extracted from a high purity ingot slice before and after annealing at 800 °C / 2 h, 4) development of crystal plasticity models based upon the single crystal experiments, and 5) assessment of how thermal conductivity is affected by strain, heat treatment, and exposure to hydrogen. Because of the large grains, the plastic anisotropy of deformation is exaggerated, and heterogeneous strains and localized defects are present to a much greater degree than expected in polycrystalline material, making it highly desirable to computationally anticipate potential forming problems before manufacturing cavities.