Thrust bearing is widely used in all kinds of rotating machines, and the lubrication capacity and bearing capacity of sliding bearing have very important evaluation parameters for the performance indexes of safety, economy and stability of the machine. With the proposal of national industrialization strategy, the development direction of all kinds of machines to high-speed and large-scale is becoming more and more clear. Therefore, the analysis of bearing capacity and lubrication performance of sliding bearing is becoming more and more important. The main goal of this paper is to carry out simulation design and optimization of bearing capacity of thrust bearing, and carry out numerical analysis of bearing capacity after optimization design. In the aspect of research methods, this paper applies the Reynolds equation and its boundary conditions to the analysis of machine bearing capacity, and discretizes the equation to a certain extent, so as to ensure that the factors that change the performance of water lubricated thrust bearing with the change of applicable conditions are taken into account. The hydrodynamic lubrication value of the water lubricated thrust bearing obtained by the experiment in this paper is consistent with the temperature field value of the finite solution, which shows that the measurement results of the water film thickness, pressure distribution and the temperature of the thrust pad in the experiment are in good agreement with the theoretical calculation results.