Thermal cycling tests on uranium have shown that the dimensional changes that occur on cycling in the alpha range are directly related to both the texture of the material and its grain size: cold rolled rods generally elongate in the direction of rolling, while the same rods, after a beta-treatment, grow at rates several orders of magnitude lower. This considerable improvement by beta-treatment has been attributed to the texture randomization accompanying the heat-treatment. In the course of this heat-treatment, however, considerable grain growth occurs, which ahs the effect of causing surface roughening on cycling (also referred to as "bumping"); fine grained material generally retains a smooth surface. These observations led to the speculation that the most desirable structure in uranium, from standpoint of dimensional stability, is one that combines both a random texture and a fine grain size. Heat treatment of rolled rod offered no easy method to obtain such a product; powder metallurgical techniques, however, appeared ideally suited for the purpose. To this end, early in 1949, the Sylvania Electric Products Company initiated a program to develop suitable techniques for producing uranium powder compacts having the above-mentioned desired characteristics. Because of the availability of thermal cycling equipment at Argonne, …

This quarterly report discusses ongoing research and experiments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Metallurgy Division. This report discusses water cooled reactors, liquid metal cooled reactors, reactor development metallurgy, basic metallurgy, applied metallurgy, and aqueous corrosion,