Surface coal mining practice in China

Surface coal mining technology, practice and development of mining systems are introduced since the founding of China. The development of surface coal mining systems can be classified into two stages: shovel-train mining system used as the major mining technology before 1980, combined mining systems have been used since 1980, that is, shovel-truck mining system used as the major overburden removal system and the shovel truck/crusher/conveyor have been utilized as the major coal winning systems. The characteristics of the second stage in area mining methods include outside waste dumping and then gradually inside dumping in the mined out areas. After analyzing the coal occurrences in China, the practice and application of surface mining technology, it is proposed that the attention should be paid to the problems such as coal haulage system layout design and the reliability improvement of the system of shovel/truck/crusher in the future development of surface coal mining.