The research on the development of the fault monitoring system for the thermal reduction reactor has been performed preliminarily in order to support the successful operation of the thermal reduction reactor. The final task of the development of the fault monitoring system is to assure the integrity of the thermal$_3$ reduction reactor by the acoustic emission (AE) method. The objectives of this paper are to identify and characterize the fault-induced signals for the discrimination of the various AE signals acquired during the reactor operation. The AE data acquisition and analysis system was constructed and applied to the fault monitoring of the small- scale reduction reactor, Through the series of experiments, the various signals such as background noise, operating signals, and fault-induced signals were measured and their characteristics were identified, which will be used in the signal discrimination for further application to full-scale thermal reduction reactor.