Abstract: The down-hole method under surface horizontal forward and reverse hammer excitation is frequently used for on-site tests of shear wave velocity.Based on the dynamic finite element method,this paper establishes a three-dimensional analysis model of the down-hole method used for shear wave velocity tests under the surface horizontal forward and reverse hammer excitation.Meanwhile,it determines the solutions of the wave response of linear elastic half space under the surface horizontal hammer excitation through explicit stepwise integration of time-domain lumped mass dynamic finite element.Furthermore,it analyzes the waveform characteristics of points at different depths and the rationality of the theoretical basis of shear wave (S-wave) velocity tests under the surface horizontal forward and reverse hammer excitation.As indicated by the results,the theoretical basis of S-wave velocity tests (i.e.,the non-inversion of P-wave onset but inversion of S-wave onset) using the down-hole method under surface horizontal forward and reverse hammer excitation is not tenable.In addition,the numerical simulation results have been further verified reasonable by the analytical solution of the wave motion in the linear elastic half space under the surface horizontal forward and reverse excitation.