Cylindrical roller thrust bearings can be used for bearing arrangements which are requied to carry very heavy axial loads, to be insensitive to shock loads, to be stiff and to take up little axial space.Their main use is in applications where the load carrying capacity of thrust ball bearings is inadequate.

Most cylindrical roller thrust bearings are single direction bearings.They can provide axial support for a shaft in one diection.They are particularly simple in design and are available as single row bearings or as multi-row bearings.