2017 | AFC ACCOMPLISHMENTS 12 1.3 INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS The Advanced Fuels Campaign (AFC) researchers are active in international collaborations with Korea, France, Japan, China, EURATOM, and OECD-NEA.These interactions and collaborations are managed through a combination of participation in Generation IV Global International Forum proj- ects, International Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (INERI) projects, and participation in bilateral and trilateral government-to-government agreements. Active work has been executed in collaboration with the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) and with the Halden reactor operated by the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) laboratory of Norway. US/Japan CNWG Collaboration on Advanced Fuels With respect to fast reactor driver and transmutation fuel develop- ment, for the last ~10 years the US has prioritized resources towards advancing the technical readiness level of metallic fuels. In order to stay current and relevant in oxide fuels, the Advanced Fuels Campaign uses international collaborations to leverage more limited research for these fuels. Accordingly, cooperative research on mixed oxide (MOX) fuel is being performed by the US and Japan under the Fuel Cycle R&D and Waste Management Sub-Working Group within the Civil Nuclear Energy Working Group (CNWG) bilateral arrangement. Coordinated activities on the prop- erties, performance and analysis of advanced oxide fuels are being performed by DOE and JAEA labora- tories. Specifically, the effort consists of coordinated activities in the areas of basic fuel and cladding properties, post irradiation examination tech- nique development, and gathering of additional data on irradiation perfor- mance from completed MOX and minor actinide (MA)-bearing MOX tests.These activities in turn support the overall goal of jointly developing a MA-MOX fuel performance code using the BISON framework devel- oped at the Idaho National Laboratory. Under this effort additional fuel irradiation tests, for instance in the Joyo orTREAT reactors, will also be proposed and planned as data needs are identified during fuel performance code development. In FY17, technical expert meetings were held in Japan and in the US at INL to advance specific tasks on basic properties of fuels and clad- ding, development of PIE data, and modeling and simulation of irradiated transmutation MOX fuel. Key accom- plishments derived from the expert coordination meetings included providing initial training at INL on Bison model development for a JAEA researcher in early 2017. US-France Advanced Nuclear Fuels R&D Collaboration DOE and CEA continued to work toward definition and design of the Americium-Bearing Blanket (AmBB) experiment proposed for irradiation in the AdvancedTest Reactor at INL.The AmBB concept proposes to investigate the possibility of transmuting Ameri- cium in the breeding blankets (or reflector region) of future sodium fast reactors and would put 10-15% Am into either depleted UO2 or depleted U-Zr blanket rods. Such AmBB rods would operate in low power and low temperature regimes for extended periods of time where no perfor- mance data currently exists. On the US side, INL produced 10 g of puri- fied Am metal that is designated for use in fabricating the U-15Am-10Zr rodlets that would be contributed to this experiment. However, at the end of FY17, the agreement between DOE and CEA for this experiment has still not been signed. OECD-NEA Expert Group on Accident Tolerant Fuels for LWRs The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development / Nuclear Energy Agency (OECD/ NEA) Nuclear Science Committee approved the formation of an Expert Group on AccidentTolerant Fuel (ATF) for LWRs (EGATFL) in 2014. Chaired by Kemal Pasamehmetoglu, INL Associate Labo- ratory Director for Nuclear Science andTechnology, the mandate for the EGATFL defines work under three task forces: (1) Systems Assessment, (2) Cladding and Core Materials, and (3) Fuel Concepts. Scope for the Systems Assessment task force (TF1) includes definition of evaluation metrics for ATF, technology readiness level definition, definition of illustra- tive scenarios for ATF evaluation, and identification of fuel performance and