Abstract: The accurate identification of delay time in short millisecond blasting is of great significance to optimal design and vibration control of tunnel blasting. Based on the defects of empirical mode decomposition (EMD) identification method and Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) identification method such as mode mixing and low detection precision, a delay time identification method based on variational mode decomposition (VMD), namely VMD identification method, was proposed. VMD identification method, HHT identification method and EMD identification method were respectively used to process the measured blasting vibration signals of Badaling Great Wall Station. The results show that: in the identification of short delay blasting, the crest of HHT method was messy, and the initiation time could not be identified accurately; the recognition rate of VMD method and EMD method increased with the increase of detonator delay time; when the delay time was lower than 20 ms, the recognition rate of EMD method was about 3/4 that of VMD method, and when the delay was higher than 20 ms, the recognition rate of both methods was above 80%. The above results show that VMD method is of certain reference value to the optimization design of short millisecond blasting.