Thrust ball bearings are manufactured as single direction or double direction thrust ball bearings. They are designed to accommodate axial loads only and must not be subjected to any radial load. In addition to the bearings presented in this section, SKF supplies thrust ball bearings for special application requirements.

Thrust bearings are a specialized type of bearing designed to handle axial stresses while allowing rotary motion between two different moving parts. Thrust, in this case, actually refers to the axial loads under which such bearings are designed to operate. Some of the different types of thrust bearing include ball, roller, fluid and magnetic.