Abstract: To address the poor comfort and low wearing willingness associated with conventional respiratory protective equipment in high-dust coal mine environments, an air-curtain ventilated dust-proof helmet was proposed. The helmet utilizes a clean airflow to form a local air curtain around the breathing zone, thereby reducing dust exposure of operators. Taking the 3301 heading face of Weiqiang Coal Mine of Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group as the research site, field measurements, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, and simulated roadway experiments were combined to investigate the airflow dust-blocking mechanism, protective performance, and anti-interference characteristics of the air-curtain ventilated dust-proof helmet under complex environmental airflow conditions. Field measurements and numerical simulations showed that the high-velocity jet from the forcing ventilation duct was deflected and disturbed by the heading face, roadway walls, and equipment, forming complex recirculation and swirling flow structures. Consequently, the dust concentration around the roadheader operator exceeded 400 mg/m³, while the average inhaled dust concentration was approximately 128 mg/m³. The air curtain generated by the helmet can cover the breathing zone with clean air, increase the local airflow momentum, and weaken the entrainment effect of environmental airflow, thereby suppressing the transport of dust-laden air into the breathing zone. CO₂ tracer gas was used to characterize the fraction of clean air supplied by the helmet in the air inhaled by the operator, and the inhalation effectiveness \delta was adopted to evaluate the protective performance. The results showed that under relatively weak environmental airflow disturbances, the helmet air-supply slot width and airflow rate were the primary factors affecting protective performance. For air-supply slot widths of 16 mm or greater, \delta exceeded 90% at an airflow rate of 8 L/s or higher and exceeded 95% at 10 L/s or higher. At the same airflow rate, increasing the air-curtain velocity significantly enhanced the protective performance. When the air-curtain velocity reached 1.0 m/s or higher, \delta exceeded 90%, while the increase in protective performance gradually leveled off when the velocity reached 1.5 m/s or higher. As environmental airflow disturbances increased, the air-curtain velocity became the key factor governing anti-interference performance, and a narrower air-supply slot combined with a higher air-curtain velocity provided better resistance to airflow disturbances. For a 16 mm air-supply slot, \delta reached 74%–97% by adjusting the airflow rate. Simulated roadway experiments showed that the cumulative protection efficiency of the helmet reached 63%–88% at airflow rates of 6–16 L/s, showing good agreement with the variation trend obtained from the numerical simulations. The results demonstrate that the air-curtain ventilated dust-proof helmet can effectively reduce dust exposure in the breathing zone of heading operators and provide a new technical approach for developing coal mine personal dust-protection equipment that balances protective performance and wearing comfort.