Abstract: Aiming at the problem of strip cracking for zirconium alloy during the stamping forming process, the effect of recrystallization annealing on microstructure and properties of Zr-Sn-Nb-Fe-Si novel zirconium alloy sheet strip was investigated. The results show that with the increase of annealing temperature, the maximum thinning reduction rate of the novel zirconium alloy sheet strip decreases, in the grain and at the grain boundary of the novel zirconium alloy, the second phase particles are dispersed. The morphology of second phase particles is basically spherical, and the larger size second phase is Zr(NbFe)₂, the smaller size second phase is β-Nb. The novel zirconium alloy sheet strip has two kinds of textures: <1010>//RD and <1120>//RD. The misorientation between the grains of <1120>//RD and the deformed matrix is 30°/<0001>. With the raising of recrystallization annealing temperature, the pinning effect generated by the second phase cannot prevent the rapid migration of ∑13 grain boundaries of the zirconium alloy superposition lattice, leading to the recrystallized grains of <1120>//RD orientation growing preferentially and annexing the deformed matrix, the proportion of small angle grain boundary decreases while the proportion of large angle grain boundary increases, resulting in the transformation of texture from <1010>//RD to <1120>//RD during recrystallization, which improves the uniformity of grain deformation, improves the uniformity of plastic deformation of the sheet strip during stamping forming. Therefore, the recrystallization annealing is in favor of improving the stamping properties of the novel zirconium alloy sheet strip.

Key words: Zr-Sn-Nb-Fe-Si novel zirconium alloy, annealing, second phase, texture, stamping property