The signal pattern recognition method by acoustic emission signal is applied to detect and classify the defects of a journal bearing in a power plant. AE signals of main defects such as overheating, wear and corrosion are obtained from a small scale model. To detect and classify the defects, AE signal pattern recognition program is developed. As the classification methods, the wavelet transformation analysis, the frequency domain analysis and time domain analysis are used. Among three analyses, the wavelet transformation analysis is most effective to detect and classify the defects of the journal bearing..