Cold Presssing of URANIUM powder with 2% wax added.These I removed from the pressing mould and placed in a Vacuum Furnace to do DE-WAXING and sintering operations.All the URANIUM plates from both hot and cold pressings were then surface ground to a specific square and thickness by myself.Project 2 was now started by Dr EVANS, still in connection with the Fuel Element programme.Apparently,some URANIUM Fuel Elements when in use in the Reactor were subjected to a Thermal Cycling between 300'c and 700'c,this caused the URANIUM to grow in size and eventually burst the Stainless steel containers in which they were sealed and so contaminated the C02 gas in the Heat Transfer unit.After building a Test Rig Furnace in the Laboratory to simulate actual Cycling conditions.We made up a series of Alloys of URANIUM and Cycled them on the equipment for set periods,with checkls size and deformation of the specimensat intervals.This work was done mainly by myself and Dr EVANS and Mr C MOORE.The object of this project was to produce a stable alloy which would not change during Thermal Cycling.
At this stage due to the PYROFORIC nature of the URANIUM and after a small fire on the Surface Grinder;I was given the task of converting the Surface Grinder to so that URANIUM could be cut under water.This was accomplished by a steel tank covered by a perspex box,with sliding doors for access and to accomodate the traverse of the machine.All cutting and grinding operations were done in this manner from then on by myself.{Later we discovered that even this did not meet the standards of safety required at other Laboratories engaged in this work.}After 12 to 15 months of work on the Fuel Element projects,in an open Laboratory the whole job was suddenly closed down and sealed off.All URANIUM was packed into containers and sent to another Laboratory at ALDERMASTON.a SEVERE DE---CONTAMINATION p