Utilization of Co-Fired Blended Ash and Chopped Basalt Fiber in the Development of Sustainable Mortar

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The first of all, adapt the format of the paper to the rules of the journal (font, references,...).

THe introduction should be completed with more updated references.  Also, many of them need to be updated (e. Thaumaturgo 2005 ).

It is high difficult to read the Figure 2.

Table 3. Indicate the standars used.

Table 4. Please indicate the standards according the properties are measured.

Table 5. What is the meaning of the terms A4, A5, ..... Please include a part of terminology. It is difficult to follow the text.

How many samples are manufactured in each case?

The quality of the Figures of the Section Results must be high improved.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1. The title bears a striking resemblance to this article:   https://doi.org/10.1002/cssc.201100552
2. This article presents the same study in a better manner. https://doi.org/10.1680/jensu.17.00008. The novel idea in this study does not come out clearly. It appears like the authors borrowed heavily from this study. It appears like the authors borrowed heavily from this study. 
3. Line 2 - The authors need to specify the industrial waste they used. The term "industrial waste" is too broad. It is clear from the abstract that the materials being referred to are Chopped basalt fibers (CBF) and co-fired blended ash (CBA)
4. Line 3. The title needs to be more specific on the type of "construction material" being focused on. The structural engineering purpose for which the material will be used should be discernable from the title. 
5. The abstract, between Lines 12 and 24, has not clearly brought out the engineering problem the research intended to solve. This section can be summarized while giving more prominence to alkali-activated products
6. Line 30 - The conclusion making reference to "boiler ashes" is not based on this study. The authors should base their conclusions entirely on the findings of their research. 
7. Line 61. Cite the various researchers being referred to in this line. 
8. The background of the study focuses more environmental and sustainability issues rather on an engineering problem. These issues should, instead, be used to justify the study. 
9. Lines 74 & 75. The statement "application of alkali-activated mortar in masonry construction enhances the structural performance of buildings" should be justified with some literature source. 
10. Lines 90 & 91. Who is the statement "Concentration of sodium hydroxide and Na2SiO3/NaOH were found to be 0.2-90 2.5, 6 M to 16 M and 1-2.5 respectively" attributed to? 
11. All the figures and tables should be presented under the section "results & discussions". They should be correctly referenced and discussed immediately after they are presented. 
12. The paragraph between Line 101 and Line 119 looks misplaced. It ought to have come earlier. The paragraph puts the study in perspective. 
13. Lines 123-128. The source of the information presented in these lines is not provided. 
14. Line 295. A graph should be used in place of Figure 11 to ease comparison and interpretation of results. Trend lines, incorporating coefficients of determination, should be used. This will aid in the assessment of the reliability of the results. 
15.  Line 304. Figure 12. Use of three data points offers low reliability when establishing trends. If possible, the authors should consider at least one more data point. 
16. Line 313. Figure 13. Due to the low number of data points, the results in this figure look manufactured. The authors should consider having at least one more data point. The authors should also consider using lines of best fit and giving the respective coefficients of determination. 
17. Line 320. The regression coefficient referred to in this line is not traceable in Figure 14. 
18. Lines 324-328. The argument provided in these lines does not provide a proper justification for use of fibers. The fibers appear to have a negative impact on mortar. 
19. The article requires extensive editing of language and style. If possible, a professional should be engaged by the authors
20. The article lacks flow. Tables and Figures are discussed either before they are presented or way after they have been presented. 
21. Lines 383 - 385. The provided conclusions are not based on the findings of this particular study.  Cost-effectiveness and environment friendliness was not investigated. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Mayor revision:

1. In Experimental Part, please specify commercial name of each equipment you use, the condition in which you analyzed the samples by each equipment. How you prepare the sample for each measurement. Please see other papers of this journal to do this well.

2, How many sample you use for mechanical test? Which norm you use to perform mechanical properties? Please specify error of your measurement listed in Table 4.

Minor revision

1. Please do not use the capital letters for equipment name: “X-Ray Diffraction” should be always “X-ray diffraction”, “Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM))” should be always “scanning electron microscope (SEM))” etc. Please revised whole manuscript.

2.Please do not make dobble abreviations: Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) line 152 page 4 and line 161 page 5.

3. Please use abbreviation for “micron”.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I ask the authors provide a clean copy to better read the manuscript.

Thanks.

Author Response

I am attaching a clean copy of the manuscript (without track changes).

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1. The authors need to add at least one citation for the information given in Line 50 to Line 56.
2. The paragraph between Line 50 and 92 is too long. Please consider breaking it to at least two paragraphs.
3. The phrase “Masonry is one of the important parts of a building that consists of masonry unit, which is joined and finished by mortar” is found in both Lines 79 & 80 and Lines 87 & 88. Please delete the repetition and re-phrase the sentence to enhance flow.
4. Table 1 is neither referred to nor discussed in text.
5. Line 102- “From the studied literature,”. Please cite the studied literature
6. Stick to the citation method provided by the journal. Line 105. Sata et al., (2012)
7. Cite the source of the information provided in Lines 110 to 113.
8. Line 128 to 130. “Though several studies were carried out on basalt fiber reinforced mortar, investigation of reinforcing chopped basalt fibers in alkali-activated mortar is limited. This is where the authors probably derived their research problem. The authors should show the difference between their work and the limited studies on basalt fibers in alkali-activated mortar. What is new?
9. Line No. 132. Justify the choice of the ratio 80:20
10. Line 157 and 158. What informed the choice of the length 12 mm and diameter- 13 μm?
11. Line 161. Use a subscript for 3 and 2 in the chemical equation Na2SiO3, i.e. Na₂SiO₃. Check other chemical equations, e.g. SiO4, AlO4 etc.
12. Line 190. “conforms to” not “confirms to”
13. Figure 3 should come after line 193, the point where it is first referred to.
14. Table 4 should come immediately after line 228, where it is first referred to.
15. Figure 6 should come immediately after line 249, where it is first referred to.
16. The authors should use past tense while reporting what they did. e.g in line 252 “the modulus of rapture is calculated” ought to have been “the modulus of rapture was calculated”. There are many other such errors in the article.
17. Figure 7 should come immediately after line 256, where it is first referred to.
18. Lines 269 to 273 present the methodology rather than the results. Consider rephrasing.
19. If possible, let all rows of Table 7 be in one page.
20. What is the parameter on the x-axis of Figure 12? What are the units?
21. Considering Figure 15 & Figure 16, the flexural strength has increased at the expense of compressive strength. What then is the benefit of the fibers?
22. Line 378. There are no points of inflexions in Figures 17 & 18 that indicate that 0.5% is the optimum CBF value. How did the authors arrive at this value?
23. Some conclusions are based on literature review rather than findings of this study. Please review.
24. The authors need to refine their grammar and general usage of the English language.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Accept in present form

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable suggestion to revise our manuscript and accept it.