Finite Element Analysis of Vortex Induced Responses of Multistory Rectangular Building

High-rise buildings may experience high levels of vibrations under the actions of wind which cause building motions, adversely affecting serviceability and occupant comfort. The paper analyzed the vortex shedding responses of a multistory building with moment resisting frame. It presents a numerical model based on computational wind engineering technique to simulate the wind action over a typical high-rise building using wind speed data of Lagos state Nigeria. The vortex shedding frequency of the vortices and the natural frequency of vibration of the entire high-rise building structural system were calculated by computing fast Fourier transform algorithm (FFT) of the force coefficient and finite element analysis (FEA) of the structural system respectively. From the result obtained, the vortex shedding frequency of the wind vortices was lower than the fundamental frequency of vibration of the typical high-rise building. Hence, vortex shedding was not responsible for the failure of high-rise buildings in the locality being considered due to the reasons stated in the author’s conclusion.