Lift Oscillation Variation in Cylinder Wake at Moderate Reynolds Numbers (300 < Re < 10000)

The flow past a circular cylinder is a classical problem in fluid dynamics, extensively studied due to its fundamental vortex dynamics and its relevance to engineering applications such as offshore structures. A key feature of this flow is the unsteady alternate shedding of vortices, which induces an oscillatory lift force on the cylinder. This oscillation is quantified by the root-mean-square of the lift coefficient, CL_RMS , which varies with Reynolds number. Norberg (2003) shows that after an initial increase the lift drops reaching a minimum around Re ≈ 1000, before gradually increasing again beyond Re ≈ 4000. This phenomenon is our object of study. In this work, we employ CFD simulations using NEKTAR++ to investigate the dynamics in the range 300RMS curve reported in the literature.