b'(1) demonstrate the ability of the recently developed framework for reliably measuring in-situ cladding behavior during simulated accident conditions and (2) begin testing of an incumbent zirconium alloy to address community concerns.Accomplishments:As accident scenarios place claddings in conditions where creep mecha-nisms can dominate deformation, simultaneous knowledge of time, temperature, strain, and loading are necessary to characterize behavior. To demonstrate the newly developed framework and to work towards addressing community concerns, digital image correlation and infrared thermography techniques were applied to eight burst tests of zirco-nium claddings. However, before targeted testing began, several novel challenges were addressed. Typically, the specimens used for burst testing are 30 cm in length. Due to the constraints of the viewport and slight variability in failure location, initial testing focused on finding the optimal cladding length, Figure 1, to ensure ballooning occurred in view of the cameras while maintaining fidelity of experimental conditions. Conventional metrics for the shortened segments such as burstFigure 1. (a) Full cladding train set in the furnace. (b) Perspective of the cladding temperature and pressure, Figuresegment outside the viewport. (c) Diagram illustrating the effect of the silicon 2, agreed with legacy empiricalcarbide shell for improved thermography resultsmodels indicating the tests are representative. Additionally, this work has identified a gap in the historic model requiring additional 2022|AFC ACCOMPLISHMENTS 93'