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Purpose Water lubrication is significant for its environmental friendliness. Composite journal bearing is liable to deform for the huge pressure of water film. This paper aims to study the influence of elastic deformation on how lubrication functions in water-lubricated journal bearings and to provide references for designing composite journal bearings.Design/methodology/approach The combination of computational fluid dynamics and fluid-structure interaction is adopted in this paper to study the lubrication performance of water-lubricated compliant journal bearings. The influences of elasticity modulus and Poisson’s ratio on load-carrying capacity and elastic deformation are studied for different rotational speeds. Predictions in this work are compared with the published experimental results, and the present work agrees well with the experimental results.Findings A reference whether elastic deformation should be considered for composite journal bearings is proposed under different working conditions. Besides, a reference to determine water-lubricated plain journal bearings dimensions under different loads and rotational speeds is developed with the effect of both elastic deformation and cavitation being accounted.Originality/value The present research provides references as to whether elastic deformation should be considered in operation and to determine compliant journal bearings’ dimensions in the design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]