  Tackling fluid-flow problems involving intricate surface geometries has been
the catalyst for a plethora of numerical investigations aimed at accommodating
curved complex boundaries. An example is the application of body-fitted
curvilinear coordinate transformation, where the one-to-one correspondence of
grid points from the physical to the computational domain is achieved. In
lubricated interfaces, such conversion is challenging due to the complex
governing equations in the mapped-grid, the numerical instabilities exhibited
by their non-linearities and the severity of operating conditions. The present
contribution proposes a Reynolds-based, finite volume fluid-structure
interaction (FSI) framework for solving thermal elastohydrodynamic lubrication
(TEHL) problems mapped onto non-orthogonal curvilinear grids in the
computational domain. We demonstrate how the strong conservation form of the
pertinent governing equations can be expressed in three-dimensional curvilinear
grids and discretised using finite volume method to ensure fluid-flow
conservation and enforce mass-conserving cavitation conditions. Numerical and
experimental benchmarks showcase the robustness and versatility of the proposed
framework to simulate a diverse range of lubrication problems, hence achieving
a predictive computational tool that would enable a shift towards
tribology-aware design.
