Abstract: Aiming at the problem of top-coal caving and drawing characteristics in the fully mechanized top-coal caving mining of a thick coal seam containing multiple gangue layers in the Huo'erxinhe Coal Mine, Shanxi, this paper investigates the main factors affecting the caving and drawing characteristics and their mechanisms through theoretical analysis and similar material model experiments. The study reveals that the caving and drawing characteristics are significantly influenced by geological conditions such as burial depth, coal seam thickness, coal hardness coefficient, fracture development characteristics, the influence of gangue, and roof lithology. Through the analysis of specific parameters of the No. 5 coal seam, the comprehensive membership degree F of top-coal caving was calculated to be 0.611 using the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method, belonging to Class IV, which indicates a moderate difficulty of top-coal caving. Further similar material model experiments demonstrate that as top-coal strength increases, the caving angle of the top coal decreases, the unsupported span length increases, and the natural recovery rate of the top coal decreases. Conversely, when the top-coal strength decreases, the distance of cracks in the top coal and the immediate roof ahead of the coal face increases, the stress concentration factor decreases, and the top-coal recovery rate improves significantly.