The present invention discloses a correlation coefficient and EMD (Empirical Mode Decomposition) filtering characteristic-based rub-impact acoustic emission signal noise reduction method. The method enables an excellent noise reduction effect for rub-impact acoustic emission signals containing white noises and pink noises, is not influenced by subjective parameters, can obtain stable results and is adaptive. According to the method of the invention, white noises and the pink noises with different signal-to-noise ratios are added to acoustic emission signals collected by a rub-impact acoustic emission test device; EMD is performed on the noise-containing signals, the correlation coefficients of intrinsic mode functions of each order obtained through the decomposition and the noise-containing signals are solved; the change rule of correlation coefficients corresponding to the intrinsic mode functions of each order is searched out based on the filtering characteristics of the EMD; and an intrinsic mode function of which the rub-impact acoustic emission signal energy is large relatively is reconstructed, so that noise-reduced signals can be obtained.