Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript reports a new sustainable anti-tank obstacle and demonstrated its performance through a finite element analysis. Moreover, this study discusses the effect of the proposed obstacle as a civil-military cooperation policy with respect to sustainability. The topic is remarkably interesting and the subject falls into the scope of Sustainability. However, the presentation of the material and provided details are not satisfactory, so I must reject it. The provided points, however, can be considered for future possible submission.

 

1.     Please update the abstract to be more comprehensive, clear, and stand-alone. We read that "When the CO2 emissions of ready-mixed concrete and those of iron plates were converted into 3.152 ton-CO2/ton and 3.466 ton-CO2/ton, respectively, approximately 3,475.81 tons of CO2 emissions could be reduced." Such absolute numbers without any background about the structure and its condition (that not possible to report in the abstract) are not useful and insightful.

2.     In the Introduction section, i.e., Section 1, only one reference is cited! One of the main aim of this section is to provide enough background for the research topic to ensure the novelty of the study, otherwise the originality and novelty of the current work cannot be confirmed. In this regard, the manuscript fails in many respects. Please enrich the literature review and discuss various aspects in the Introduction, not only historical background, but also from structural and sustainability perspective. Also please consider that the majority of the possible reader are not from South Korea, so do not over-focus on it.

3.   Referring to the point 2, the literature review in the entire manuscript is very out-of-date. No paper that published in the two recent years was cited in the manuscript. Please update your manuscript to reflect the current advances.

4.     Table 1 needs a reference.

5.     In Section 3.1, do the Authors conduct the interview? If yes, provide a brief background and statistics, if not provide a reference to the source.

6.     Where is the graphic related to the Figure 3 in L166?!

7.     No background is provided for selected geometry and material. How the Authors reached to this specific configuration? Why not different core patterns? If you suggest a new structure, the rationale should be discussed.

8.     Tanks can easily destroy a reinforced rock drop with maximum 2 projectiles. It seems that destroying the steel alternative can be even much easier. You should also consider that steel is extremely sensitive to high temperature that is very common in combat situations, i.e., fire. The effectiveness of your solution without discussing such details is very questionable.

9.     Much more details should be provided in the Section 3.2. Please provide all necessary details to ensure the reproducibility of the FE results. What are the solver and analysis type? Which area accepts the load? What is the loading rate? What is the material model? What is the damage model? What are the interactions between different parts?

10.  It seems that the Authors just consider the elastic-plastic behavior, in this case, how can be sure that the material does not enter the damage phase? It's especially important because no validation is reported. The entire Section 3.1 is not useful in the current form.

11.  The citation of related literature is started actually in Section 4. Why do the Authors think there is no need for citations in previous sections?

12.  In the Section 4 the rationale is not clear, and the provided details are not sufficient. This section should be enriched heavily to understand your methodology that is very clumsy now. Please describe your methodology in a truly clear way and highlight the simplification and limitation. What about the sustainability impact of concrete and steel production? What about transportation of material to the site? What is the impact of demolition of the exiting structures? The mechanical equipment for new structure? And so on. Too many parameters are involved in such an assessment. I understand that the Author cannot consider all of them in a single manuscript, but the current version is not acceptable. Please update this part to reflect your framework very clearly and discuss the rationale and highlight the limitations.

 

 

Author Response

Please refer to the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The proposed area of research work deals Sustainable Anti-tank Obstacle System Applying Civil-Mili- tary Cooperation in Highly Urbanized Areas. There are some explanations on drawbacks of present system, alternate methods and suggestions for implementation are provided. The presentation to be revised before the acceptance

Check the units in Table MPA, to be revised

The sustainability aspects does not depends only CO2 emission, the authors should throw some lights on cost and energy

The proposed method/material should be viable not only based on strength aspect, durability and economical construction technology also important

Introduction section is weak; expand the section with need for the study, areas to be addressed, novelty of the proposed work, key elements of the research work and summary

Conclusion should be more precise, revise

Check Fig 7, sustainability indicators, Reduce/Reuse/Recycle???

Provide more discussion based on Sustainable development indicators for the proposed study

The challenges ahead/scope for future studies to be mentioned

Selection of alternative obstacles should have strong background and some of the merits and demerits to be discussed

The FEM model section to be revised, need more clarity about the analysis procedure, assumptions, results analysis and its relevance to the proposed work etc., so that the readers can have some understanding

 

Refer the following works for sustainable development

Spence, R., & Mulligan, H. (1995). Sustainable development and the construction industry. Habitat international, 19(3), 279-292.

Kanagaraj, B., Kiran, T., Anand, N., Al Jabri, K., & Justin, S. (2022). Development and strength assessment of eco-friendly geopolymer concrete made with natural and recycled aggregates. Construction Innovation.

 

Sev, A. (2009). How can the construction industry contribute to sustainable development? A conceptual framework. Sustainable Development, 17(3), 161-173.

Author Response

Please refer to the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic is absolutely interesting, and the revised version of the manuscript is improved for sure. However, the main problems remain unsolved. Application of the static analysis and elastic-plastic material model for extreme loading, that involved high dynamic effects and damage, is not acceptable. Especially because, neither validation/verification, nor enough details regarding equivalent static method are provided. This reviewer understands that the main emphasis is pun on the sustainability aspects, however, even this part in not enough deep and novel to ignore the basic flaws in the numerical modeling. Therefore, I have to reject it.

Author Response

Please find the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have made a sufficient effort to address the comments

Author Response

The authors appreciate the positive review.