With the intensification and large-scale of coal mining, scraper conveyors are developing towards high power, large volume, long haul distance and high reliability. It is more and more important to obtain the dynamic tension of the scraper chain with time-varying load. The purpose of this paper is to obtain the dynamic tension of scraper chains of the scraper conveyor with time-varying load. First, according to the structural characteristics and working environment of the scraper conveyor and the polygon effect of the sprocket, the scraper conveyor dynamics model under the action of the time-varying load is established by the finite unit method; Second, the load variation rule of the bearing section is explored when the scraper conveyor and shearer work together; Furthermore, the element resistance of each discrete element, the stiffness coefficient of the scraper chain and the influence of polygonal effect of sprocket wheel are analyzed; And then, the dynamic tension of the scraper chain is obtained by the Hilber-Hughes-Taylor (HHT) method; Finally, the validity of the scraper conveyor dynamic model is verified by the example analysis and field measurement experiment. The obtained results can provide a theoretical basis for the reliability evaluation and parameter optimization of the scraper conveyor.