Far East District engineers at Kunsan Resident Office are overseeing construction of 10 aircraft flow thru shelters. Unlike the old shelters, the newly constructed shelters will have hot pit refueling and munitions loading capabilities. Resident engineer Christopher Martin said progress on the project is going smoothly but the upcoming months will present several tests.
“Safety during concrete placement and construction of two fuel storage tanks will be a big challenge,” said Martin. “Critical to proper construction and safety is equal concrete placement on both sides of the shelter as the concrete is supplied. To ensure an equal and constant supply, we have coordinated with the security forces and the base civil engineers for alternate gate access. This will minimize the wait and travel time for the concrete trucks and ensure a constant well timed supply of concrete.”
Commissioning of the refueling system will also be another challenge for this project. To alleviate the challenges and hurdles that accompany the specialties of a hydrant fuel system, the district awarded a Title II service contract to review the fuel system submittals and construction. In addition, Kunsan resident office engineers attended a construction after action review for a past hydrant fuel project at Osan Air Base.
“We gained valuable lessons learned and have initiated processes to eliminate similar issues on this hydrant fuel system,” said Martin.
Kunsan Resident Office has maintained a strong relationship with the user, the contractor and Korea’s Ministry of National Defense Construction Management team. They have constantly kept the base civil engineers informed and have bi-weekly meetings to address all construction/design issues.
“The end user, Defense Logistic Agency, visited the site in March and was very satisfied with the progress and the quality of work,” said Martin.
So far 23 percent of the project has been finished with final completion set for early 2019.