Abstract: The excitation results of hammer sources are determined by the mass of the hammer, the impact velocity, the size and materials of the base plate. By studying the physical model of hammer source and using finite element methods, we numerically simulated the whole process of the hammer source excitation to the formation of the seismic wavelet, and then calculated and analyzed the wavelet. From the angle of excitation parameters, we carried out numerical simulations of seismic excitation with different parameters on soil and rock medium. Then we analyzed the impacts of different source excitation parameters on wavelet and the impacts of mediums. This study provides a reference basis for choosing excitation parameters of hammer source to improve the prospect quality in shallow surface seismic exploration.