Abstract: Acoustic emission technique was used to monitor the failure process of plywood in tensile loading, which used a supplement method of the traditional mechanical testing. The test results showed that the damage process of material could be divided into several stages according to different characteristics of AE parameter. Furthermore, the research revealed that damage evolution mechanisms and damage modes could be characterized by AE characteristic parameters during tension process, which could reflect the damage characteristics of plywood. So it was expected that acoustic emission technique was a useful supplement for the traditional mechanical method in evaluating the material quality.