This report documents the Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Engineering Research Program for fiscal year 1997, it provides a summary for each of the program projects in addition to a brief program overview. The report is intended to provide staff of Congressional committees, other executive departments, and other DOE offices with substantive program information so as to facilitate governmental overview and coordination of Federal research programs. Of equal importance, its availability facilitates communication of program information to interested research engineers and scientists. The individual project summaries follow the program overview. The summaries are ordered alphabetically by name of institution; the table of contents lists all the inst...