Condition monitoring technology is of great importance for the maintenance of complex machinery in view of its early monitoring of the abnormal condition and the protection against failure. Several methods have been used for the detection of failure of journal bearings, one of the main elements of mechanical system. The methods most frequently used are vibration and temperature monitoring, but these are unable to monitor the wear conditions exactly. In this study, an ultrasonic measument method, one of the non-destructive testing methods, was introduced as the monitoring technology. Furtermore a pattem recognition method was applied to analyze the ultrasonic signal. The monitoring system using the pattern recognition method is composed of digital signal processing units and uses Hamming net algorithm for the recognition of ultrasonic waves. From the journal bearing wear test, the occurrence of adhesive wear of the white metal in rubbing contact with the shaft was exactly detected by this system, and the wear status of the journal bearing was monitored by measuring the wear thickness.