Practice and prospect of fully mechanised mininig technology for thin coal seams under complex conditions in China

In China, thin coal seam are rich in resources and complex in conditions, however, the characteristics such as narrow mining space, the low level of mechanised technology, bad working environment and the high cost of mining, directly restrict the development of mining safety and high-efficiency. In thin coal seams with hard gangue which contains concretions of pyrite, LS-DYNA is applied to calculate the rational blasting parameters and carry out the deep-hole pre-splitting blasting technology, the hard gangue is fractured effectively, hence advancing the productivity of thin coal seam mining. In addition, the mining rate is sped up in thin protective layers in extreme close coal seams by enhancing the level of fully mechanised equipment and other effective measures. Safety and high-efficiency mining can be realised in the outburst coal seam. Thin coal seam mining technology faces many problems presently, i.e. the low level of equipment automation, the low advance rate of mixed coal-rock drift, and the big intensity of worker labour. By lowering the labour intensity, improving the efficiency by means of advancing mining automatic equipment and other measures, respectively, thus manless working faces can be successfully realised in thin coal seam mining.