[Panboy]

Hey Guys,
I have recently discovered this forum and so much good information. I am studying vortex shedding, and I believe I have read ever post on it, but I still have a few quick questions.

I have simulated a 2d cylinder at low reynolds number with results of vortex shedding as a lesson for myself.
I have now moved on to a 2d profiled body with a blunt trailing edge. Pretty much a flat plate with a smooth leading edge.

I can not for the life of me get vortex shedding on this body.

I am simulating Re 500. The body is .0254m thick and .3175m long.
I have refined my mesh many times and I believe I have a very fine mesh with 110,000 cells, but that might not mean much since I am new to CFD/fluent. its orthogonal quality is .85, and its all hex mesh. with biasing towards the body walls and wake area.

I have tried both starting it straight from transient, and also starting as steady, and using those results for initial values for transient solution.

I have tried to run it both with and without turbulent models
I have also attempted simulations in which i patched the y-velocity in order to help start the shedding.

I have used SIMPLE, and PISO models, and am using second order for both spatial and time discritization. I have sometimes attempted to use the PRESTO model a few times as well.

my time step size is .0025s and I am iterating 30 iterations per time step.


My main questions are:

1. The main problem is that I can't get my C_L to oscillate. It either goes straight to 0, or it oscillates a few times before it damps out to 0. Is this a common problem for a silly mistake that I am doing?

2. For the reference values, I am setting my surface area to my chord length, and the length value to the chord length also. Is this correct?


Thanks so much to anyone who can throw me some ideas.