The prominent thermal management problem makes it particularly important to predict the thermo-elastic behavior of hydrodynamic bearings. In this study, a coupling model of lubrication film hydrodynamics and rotor-bearing thermal elasticity mechanics was developed. The variation laws of thermal and static characteristics of gas foil thrust bearing were analyzed. The dynamic characteristics of the coupling model were determined using the perturbation method. The results show that ignoring the influence of foil and rotor thermal growth makes the predicted value of maximum gas film pressure low. When the friction coefficient is 0.6, the gas film pressure is underestimated by 29.8%. The temperature is overestimated when the film thickness is less than 8 μm, and the temperature is underestimated when the friction coefficient is greater than 0.3. The stiffness and damping coefficients are underestimated, up to 17.8% and 10.7% respectively.