Targeting advanced nuclear energy systems such as liquid metal reactors, the Department focuses on system simulation and visualization, data fusion and artificial intelligence, digital twins and intelligent operation and maintenance, unmanned autonomous control, R&D of professional software for nuclear design and safety analysis, and other related research directions.

The Department has independently developed a series of software packages, including large-scale Monte Carlo particle transport calculation, full-system reactor–electric–control simulation, radiation safety assessment and 3D simulation, reliability and risk modeling analysis of complex systems, and online risk monitoring and early warning for nuclear power plants. It has built a comprehensive simulation platform for advanced nuclear energy systems and a petaflops high-performance computing cluster. These support frontier research such as intelligent nuclear design and safety analysis, multiphysics and multiscale coupled computation and visualization analysis, internal and external exposure dose assessment, digital assembly 3D simulation, condition monitoring and risk management, and autonomous operation control, providing important platform support for the digital and intelligent R&D of advanced nuclear energy systems such as liquid metal reactors.

In recent years, it has undertaken more than 50 projects, including Strategic Priority Research Program projects of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Key R&D Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, major national defense engineering projects, the National Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory Fund, the Anhui Provincial Key R&D Program, medium- and long-term projects of leading nuclear industry enterprises, and competitive projects of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It has published more than 100 academic papers, including more than 50 SCI papers, more than 10 invention patents, and applied for more than 10 software copyrights. It has won one First Prize of the Science and Technology Progress Award of the Chinese Association of Automation.