The safe and efficient operation of the shearer is the key to coal mining. However, the walking wheel with wear and short fatigue life seriously restrict the improvement of the shearer’s reliability. And the failure effect of torsion deformation is mostly ignored. Therefore, to reveal the failure mechanism of the walking wheel and improve the haulage reliability of the shearer, the meshing model of the walking wheel and pin track considering torsional deformation was established. The meshing characteristics of the walking wheel and the damage mechanism of the tooth surface caused by the axial unbalanced load were analyzed, and the effects of the roll angle, the velocity, and the traction force were discussed. The results show that the peak force is close to the meshing-in area, the stress concentration on the tooth profile of the walking wheel is significant, but the stress distribution in the axial direction of the pin track is uniform; although the roll angle can restrain the meshing impact of the walking wheel, the axial unbalanced load and the wear on the load-bearing side increases with the appearance of the torsional deformation; with the velocity increasing, the stability of the walking wheel with roll angle decreases, the axial unbalanced load intensifies while the safety factor decreases; with the traction load increasing, the load distribution improves, but the bending fatigue strength of the tooth root and the safety factor decrease, and the plastic deformation and wear on the bearing-load side increase. The results provide a reference for exploring the meshing characteristics and failure mechanism of the walking wheel and improving the traction reliability of the shearer.
