Specially designed grooved journal bearings are installed in the main coolant pump for SMART (System-integrated Modular Advanced ReacTor) to support radial load on the rotating shaft. The canned motor type main coolant pumps are arranged vertically on the reactor vessel and filled with circulating primary coolant which is pure water. The main coolant pump bearings are lubricated with this coolant without any other external lubricant supply. Because lubricating condition is too severe for this bearing to generate proper hydrodynamic film, investigation of lubrication characteristics of the journal bearing is important to satisfy life constraint of whole pump system, and the results will be applied to the analysis of dynamic characteristics of the shaft system. The bearing is made of silicon graphite which has self$.$lubricating effect. A lubrication analysis method is proposed for this vertically grooved journal bearing in the main coolant pump of SMART, and lubricational characteristics of the bearings are examined in this paper.