Impact load is a common load， but it is also very special. Compared with other persistent loads， impact load has the char? acteristics of short duration and large output energy， leading to the transient vibration which may affect the system’s operation safe? ty. In this paper， the active magnetic bearing （AMB）?flexible rotor was installed on an elastically supported base. The vibration characteristics of the elastic supported base under five types of impact loads， including double half?sine wave， half?sine wave， sine wave， triangle wave， and double triangle wave， were investigated. The influence of different impact load parameters on the accel? eration of the base was obtained. In order to suppress the rotor vibrations， relative to the base induced by impact loads， a transient vibration compensation control strategy based on the base acceleration was derived. The theoretical and experimental results indi? cate that the elastic supported base and the AMBs?flexible rotor system installed on it both exhibit obvious impact characteristics un? der impact loads. These impact characteristics vary with different types of impact loads. The effect of base shock excitations on the rotor vibration can be effectively suppressed by the proposed algorithm.