Analysis and Improvement of Coal-loading Performance and Reliability of Thin Seam Coal Shearer Drums

The structure of coal shearer drums significantly influences the coal-loading efficiency and load fluctuations of thin seam coal shearers. To enhance drum efficiency and reliability, this paper proposes a collaborative optimization method based on an improved NSGA-II algorithm. Initially, using the Discrete Element Method (DEM), we analyze the impact of helical vanes on coal-loading performance and investigate novel designs for two types of coal-guiding drums. To optimize dynamic performance, concepts like spatial density and adaptive radius are introduced, proposing an NSGA-II enhancement strategy based on spatial density for the collaborative optimization of drum structure and motion parameters. Finally, the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method is used for subjective evaluation to select the optimal solution. Research findings demonstrate that this collaborative optimization method significantly enhances drum reliability, reduces load fluctuations by 46.34%, increases coal-loading efficiency by 7.06%, and decreases coal-loading power by 27.31%.