Best Practices for Quasistatic Berkovich Nanoindentation of Wood Cell Walls

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

A very interesting publication dealing with the method which has become popular in the study of wood properties in the last two decades.
Very extensive article.
However, in many places, according to the reviewer, there are repetitions. Especially when the long chapter 2 is compared with the proper chapters, ie 3, 4 and 5. Chapter 2 describes the nanoindentation technique, but in the chapters mentioned above the authors describe these phenomena again. In the opinion of the reviewer, the text of the publication can be shortened. Most of the publications from the reference list are listed on the 5 pages of the introduction, the remaining part, i.e. chapter 2, is based on the authors' observations from the previous research.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for their review or our manuscript. While we agree the paper is quite long, our goal is to write a single paper that provides the necessary information for a novice researcher to perform successful nanoindentation experiments in wood cell walls. Accomplishing our goal requires an unconventional manuscript format, which includes the long Chapter 2 on nanoindentation basics. While much of the information in Chapter 2 could be found in various nanoindentation books, operating manuals, and review articles, some of the information in these other sources is conflicting and the information is almost always presented in the context of performing experiments in traditional metal and ceramic materials. We wrote chapter 2 as a synthesis of the previous work within the context of performing nanoindentation on wood cell walls. Chapter 2 provides the needed foundation, especially for researchers who are new to the field, for our analysis algorithm and performing successful experiments on wood cell walls.  

To clarify this, the sentence “This review of nanoindentation basics provides the needed foundation for the remaining parts.” was added to the last paragraph of the introduction (lines 202-203 in the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

„Best Practices for Quasistatic Berkovich Nanoindentation of Wood Cell Walls” is a very interesting article important for wood scientists who are interested in the wood mechanical properties, especially on the micro- and nano-scale level of the cell wall layers. Written understandably, it presents the challenges of the nanoindentation technique applied to wood and other natural polymer materials. Furthermore, it provides the readers with improved protocols and algorithms helpful in performing the measurements and obtaining reliable data. Additionally, the manuscript is enriched with useful, well-described schematics that help to understand the problems discussed. Therefore, I do not have any comments on the paper.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for their review or our manuscript and kind words.