Abstract：Torsion shear wave transducer is a newly developed device to test the shear wave velocity of soil specimen which has not been reported before. Parallel shear wave velocity tests are carried out on cohesive and cohesionless soil specimens by using torsion wave transducer and another method，bending element method，separately. The results show that test results by the bending elements are 20 percent lower than that obtained from torsion wave transducer for the same kind of soil specimen under the same consolidation condition. To check which device is more reliable，another test is performed in which the shear wave velocity of plexiglass rod，whose true shear wave velocity is known，is tested with torsion wave transducer，and the test result has only 1.2% relative error to the real value，which means that the torsion wave transducer is a more reliable shear wave velocity test device.
