To study the artificially produced and actively controlled water hammer wave generated by hydraulic vibration exciter, a mathematical model was established and an experimental system was designed to verify it. Through the given partial differential equations, a computer code based on the method of characteristics was developed to calculate transient pressure and flow velocity distributed along the pipe. The numerical simulations showed that a simple harmonic motion rose at every cross section of the pipe. Meanwhile, the excitation pressure and flow velocity at hydraulic cylinder increased as the rising rotational frequency of vibration exciter. Moreover, measured data was basically consistent with the numerical simulations. It indicated that the excitation parameters of hydraulic cylinder could be controlled almost linearly via adjusting the rotational frequency of vibration exciter. So, this work is expected to study vibration mechanism of a new hydraulic excitation system and play an experimental guiding role to further research in future.