Research situation and prospect of fully mechanized mining technology in thick coal seams in China

Coal production in China accounts for 1/3 of total output in the world, and nearly half of China’s output is extracted in thick coal seams. Therefore, it is significant to study fully mechanized mining technology in thick coal seams. The development, current situation, and issue of slicing mining, top-coal caving, and coal seams cutting sufficient height with fully mechanized mining technology are systematically analyzed in this paper. According to result of analysis, the prospect of development of fully mechanized mining technology in thick coal seams is discussed. Especially, authors have represented the key problems which block the development of fully mechanized mining technology in thick coal seams.