The sustainable development of coal mines by new cutting roof technology

China consumes more than 3.6 billion tons of coal every year, accounting for over 60% of the energy consumption. Therefore, the sustainable development of coal mine is a problem needed to be solved by the Chinese government. During the coal resources recovery, the protective coal pillars between the adjacent working faces cause the serious loss for coal resources. In order to solve the problem, it was put forward that the new technology of roof cutting with chain arm to retain roadway in the paper. Firstly, the process of retaining roadway, roof-cutting parameters and the damage ranges of roadway surrounding rock induced by roof cutting with chain arm were analyzed. Then, it was given that the working resistance of the temporary support equipment in technology of roof cutting with chain arm to retain roadway. Next, the roof-cutting height, the type of temporary support equipment, working resistance of portal support and support parameters of the bolt and anchor cables were optimized by the numerical calculation. Finally, the industrial experiment of retaining roadway by roof cutting with chain arm was carried out in a working face. The surrounding rock damage was minimal with the use of chain arm-roof cutting technology, and the variation range of the uniaxial compressive strength was only 5%, resulting in the roof damage rate to 82 mm. From the studies, it was concluded that this technology could be of a great asset to the coal mining community.