Abstract:This paper takes the shallow section coal pillar in a gently inclined thick coal seam of a coal mine as an object. Firstly, the numerical simulation method was used to analyze the principal stress, plastic zone, supporting stress and displacement characteristic during seam mining with different coal pillar widths, to evaluate the stability of roadway surrounding rock and to determine the reasonable width range of coal pillar. The results show that when the width of coal pillar is 3 m, the Mohr stress circle of section coal pillar intersects the strength envelope, the plastic zone penetrates through, and the supporting structure tends to damaged. When the width of coal pillar is 6 m, the elastic zone only accounts for 30% of the section coal pillar zone, and the supporting structure tends to be damaged. When the width of coal pillar is 9~12 m, the stress circle is separated from the strength envelope, the surrounding rock is in the elastic deformation stage, the supporting structure has good bearing capacity and the surrounding rock displacement is small, so it meets the production needs of coal mines. The width is reasonable width range of coal pillar. Secondly, the width of the section coal pillar was verified by the practical application of the project. The results show that when the section pillar width is 9 m, the deformation and destruction of the surrounding rock can be effectively controlled, and the coal production efficiency and coal recovery ratio are optimized. It is concluded that the optimized width of shallow section coal pillar is 9 m in the gently inclined thick coal seam.