Which one is better, fire-resistant wood or steel?
From the aspect of low-carbon and environment protection, the steel and timber structures are both OK, they are both renewable resources, the steel can be recycled and melt down again and wood can continue to be planted. Fireproof board Fireproof board is a refractory material used for surface decoration. It is widely used in interior decoration, furniture, kitchen cabinets, laboratory tables, walls, and other fields.
According to my understanding. This fire-resisting wood is better. Iron birch. The iron birch is three times harder than the oak, twice as hard than ordinary steel. It is the world's hardest wood which is used as a substitute for metal. The Soviet Union have used iron birch for the manufacturing of roller ball, bearings and it is applied in yachts. Iron birch has some wonderful characteristics. Since it has very dense texture, once put in the water it will sink; even if it is soaked in the water for a long time, the inside still remains dry. The iron birch is twice harder than the steel, it doesn't mean that its hrc value is twice of that of the steel. HRC means test load 1471.1N (150KG-F) using a diamond cone head with the point angle of 120 degrees to press. The calculation formula HR= (K-H) /C,K=0.2MM,H is the depth of indentation after releasing the major load. C= 0.002MM, so HRC100 is a limit value, then H is 0, which means that even the diamond will not drill into it. Generally the hardness of bearing steel is about HRC60. Iron birch is the championship among trees in terms of hardness. The bullet hit the wood is like hitting on a thick steel plate and the wood will be motionless. So, it is known as a tree harder than steel. I hope my answer will be helpful to you.
Rebar would weaken and quickly collapse in the fire, and the fire resistance of a heavy log is much better than steel. In many ways, the fire resistance of a large log is equal to reinforced concrete. The heat transfer capacity of wood is 400 times smaller than steel, 8.5 times smaller than concrete. When burning, wood will form a layer of carbon in the surface, and as long as the cross-section of the timber is over a certain size, this layer of carbon it will become an excellent flame retardant layer to protect the interior of the wood from burning. So the United States and Japan and other European countries allow and encourage the use of wood structure with a large section (beam column of 8 inches or more) to construct public buildings without the need for fire treatment applied to wood surface. I hope my answer will be helpful to you.
