In order to recognize similar handwritten Chinese characters effectively,a convolutional neural network(CNN) model is proposed,and the topology of the network model is presented.Then,the sample set is extendedby introducing a stochastic elastic deformation to enhance the generalization performance of the model.Experimen-tal results indicate that the recognition accuracy of the proposed CNN model is 1.66% higher than that of the tradi-tional CNN model,especially,for distorted handwritten Chinese characters,the recognition accuracy increases by12.85%; moreover,as compared with the traditional recognition methods,the proposed CNN model reduces therecognition error rate by 36.47%.It is thus concluded that the proposed method is effective.