Development of Design Considerations as a Sustainability Approach for Military Protective Structures: A Case Study of Artillery Fighting Position in South Korea

Republic of Korea (ROK) military installations are scattered across South Korea, but there is a higher concentration of fortifications in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and eastern and western coastlines. These facilities range from relatively small structures, such as individual and artillery fighting positions, to large buildings, such as ammunition depots and command posts. These military installations have a significant thickness of concrete members to provide a high degree of protection against bombs and projectiles. The Korean military will carry out the integration and dismantling of these protection facilities over the next ten years through the Army transformation plan. Such large-scale construction projects have an impact on the environment in terms of the carbon footprint, because building construction and operations account for 36% of the world’s energy use and 40% of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions. It is very important to reduce the concrete materials and reinforcement steel during protective structure construction near the DMZ, which is now recognized as one of the most well-preserved areas in the world. In this study, new sustainable design considerations that allow elasto-plastic or plastic design of concrete elements were evaluated using a case study of an artillery fighting position. The new sustainable design considerations were developed on the basis of mission, enemy, terrain and weather, troops and support available, time and civil considerations (METT + TC) within the context of the current battle situation, as well as protection against near misses. From this study, it was found that new sustainable design considerations provide a reasonable degree of protection that permits good construction practices and maximum structural stability with minimum amount of materials. It was also found that if the new design procedure is used to replace 1000 artillery positions through the Army transformation plan, the CO 2 emissions can be reduced by 476,582.4 tons and the cost reduced by USD 23,829,120.