The Recretal Structure: Concrete Vs. Steel Structures

Concrete vs. Steel Structures:

In the past, the world of construction of buildings was based on wood, adobe, thatch and cave dwellings as construction materials or units. Modern engineering has developed to use the steel, concrete as basic elements of construction. Nowadays, there is a worldwide debate about which material of those two does reign supreme in the world of development. Most importantly, concrete and steel have different mechanical properties which cause a different behavior under the various conditions. A detailed comparison was done between concrete and steel in terms of safety, structural performance, cost and material availability as follows:

1- Safety:

 Concrete: Many announcements by well known developers say that concrete is safer. 2-foot thickness of concrete provides an outstanding resistance of fire. Moreover, it can resist very high temperatures for long intervals of time without any loss in the structural integrity. Concrete requires fireproofing treatment in order to meet fire codes. Additionally, Reinforced concrete can resist winds with speed 200mph and more. Also it showed an outstanding behavior in earthquakes.

 Steel: Recent reports blamed the problems of steel in fire such as softening and melting in such conditions if exposed to
This price is based on many market factors such as supply, demand, shipping, region and grade of steel. Because of these factors, the cost of steel should be taken in considerations right away. One of the significant steel cost variables is the size of steel structure. For most of the cases, the larger the steel structure the less need for steel fabrications, the less the surface area used and the lower the price per square foot . All these reasons combined causing an increase in steel cost over the previous years which would definitely affect the steel structure and concrete framing systems total