Tubular chain conveyors have become core equipment in modern bulk material handling by virtue of their significant advantages, including highly efficient conveying, fully enclosed operation, and three-dimensional flexible spatial layout. This paper systematically reviews the current status and progress of research on tubular chain conveyors both domestically and internationally, and provides an in-depth analysis of their technological evolution, core theoretical framework, and industrial adaptability. Emphasis is placed on reviewing their engineering applications in the grain, oil and food industry. In view of the remaining deficiencies in current research concerning adaptability to extreme operating conditions, multi-physics coupling mechanism modeling, large-scale implementation of intelligent operation and maintenance technologies, and life-cycle energy efficiency evaluation systems, this paper extracts the key scientific issues and development directions that urgently need to be addressed.