Abstract: This paper puts forward the idea of dust fine control and the optimization standard for nozzle spray flow patterns. According to the optimization standard, theoretical analysis is made for solid cone, flat fan and arc fan spray flow patterns, and then experimental comparisons are made among these three patterns. The theoretical and experimental results show that arc fan is the best spray flow pattern for dust fine control with the vertical shaft-type tunneling machine, the practical wrapped area of arc fan nozzle and flat fan nozzle is respectively 2.35 and 1.38 times larger than that of solid cone nozzle.