Surrounding Rocks Deformation Mechanism and Roof Cutting-Grouting Joint Control Technology for Soft and Thick Coal Seam Roadway

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper used theoretical analysis and numerical simulation to to solve the difficulty in roadway protection in soft and thick coal beds under strong mining effect is proposed. After field measurements and verifications, the control technology can ensure the safe exploitation of deep coal pillars. There are some minor revisions can be considered to improve this manuscript.

(1) The authors cited a lot of Chinese Literature, it's OK, but the authors need to do more analysis on the international achievements involved in this manuscript.

(2) The manuscript contains many grammatical errors that need to be corrected to get the international level's language. For example, try not to use two "and" in the same sentence. The sentence ‘identified the key area of surrounding rock deformation' lacks a subject. Too many sentences are unreadable. There are many such questions in the manuscript, and authors are advised to check carefully.

(3) Only parameters related to roof cutting is marked in Figure 12. More parameters should be marked clearly in the figure.

(4) It seems that part of Sect. 3.1 has little to do with Section 3? If so, it can be removed.

no comment.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you very much for inviting me to evaluate the manuscript entitled " Surrounding rocks deformation mechanism and roof cutting - grouting joint control technology for soft and thick coal seam roadway". The soft and thick coal seam roadway are prone to severe deformation of surrounding rocks and difficulties in roadway protection under strong mining effect, which seriously threatens the sustainable development of a coal mine. In order to solve the problem, this manuscript defined the key area of roadway deformation and instability. Based on the experimental design and data analysis with the Response Surface Method (RSM), the single-factor and multi-factor horizontal interactions on the stability of surrounding rocks and the internal causes were analyzed.

The “anchor bolt (cable) support - pre-splitting - coal pillar grouting” technical scheme is proposed to prevent and control the deformation and instability of roadway surrounding rocks. This effectively restrains the shear failure of surrounding rocks in the soft and thick coal bed. This is a very interesting topic for readers related to mining engineering. However, the manuscript still has some shortages. Thence, the manuscript is acceptable after minor corrections.

Some shortages or advices of the manuscript are listed as following:

1. The description of the abstract needs to be improved, some content is redundant, some content is missing.

2. I wonder if the author can add more references to the existing knowledge of roof cutting technology to the introduction.

3. Some grammatical errors were found in the manuscript, therefore, a final re-writing is recommended.

4. I did not find any errors in methodology or data analysis. But I'm a little confused about the content of section 5.4. That is Page 19; Line 600-601: Floor heave accounted for 23.4% in the roof and floor displacement., but is it consistent with the study focus to the extent that it should appear in what is essentially the discussion section of the manuscript?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

  Journal : Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050) Manuscript ID : sustainability-2629426 Type : Essay Title : Surrounding Rocks Deformation Mechanism and Roof Cutting - Grouting Joint Control Technology for Soft and Thick Coal Seam Roadway Authors : Xutong Zhang , Fangtian Wang * , Hongfei QU , Chao Liu , Zhe Li , Wenhua Hao

 

Dear Authors,

Thank you for trying to spread science. 

This research aims to solve the deformation problem of roadway surrounding rock and the roadway protection difficulty in soft and thick coal beds under strong mining effect. Of course, simple results have been obtained from these investigations, which are carried out in all the researches in this field in mines. And it usually has similar results. However, the studies conducted are accurate and show that many efforts have been made for this research. But it should be considered that the scientific results are different from the results of an industrial project and the authors have paid less attention to this issue.

I will explain a few points below.

(1) The structure of an abstract is very different from what you wrote and the abstract should be rewritten. You can know the structure of a scientific abstract with a simple search and rewrite it.

(2) As you know, the introduction includes 5 specific areas for explanation. The background of the research is not complete and it is also so weak in terms of citations that it can be rejected! However, please improve the manuscript with correct and up-to-date citations, as well as rewriting the introduction and expanding it.

Note that the introduction is a very sensitive part of an article. I emphasize that this article is not considered a scientific article without a good introduction in which (1) Background and literature review. (2) Statement of the problem. (3) Suggested methods. (4) Solution; (5) Main objectives. is not mentioned as scientific text !

(3) It is surprising why an industrial company is mentioned in a scientific article. Note that industrial studies are different from scientific studies. You are looking for a scientific purpose and not advertising. [example : Line 98]

(4) The engineering background is somewhat explained in the article, but I don't understand if it was done by the authors themselves. I hardly know. Please refer to each part. Please consider scientific ethics.

(5) The conclusion of this paper is not written correctly and the conclusion should be integrated and accurately talk about your conclusions and not written experiments.

(6) The English language of this article is poor and sometimes not understandable. In addition to using text correction software like grammarly, you can get help from a native English language editor.

(7) where is the discussion ? Try to read some scientific articles.

(*) Your references are very few and do not give credibility to the article. Your data should also be made available to the public.

(*) In the end, I recommend that you prepare a detailed flowchart of the steps so that the reader can understand the beginning, end, and stages of your work at a glance.

The English language of this article is poor and sometimes not understandable. In addition to using text correction software like grammarly, you can get help from a native English language editor.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper reports a case study on the problem of serious deformation of roadway surrounding rock and the difficulty in roadway protection in soft and thick coal beds. The theoretical analysis was used to propose a new technical scheme is proposed to prevent and control the deformation and instability of roadway surrounding rocks. It is a useful topic. I have some minor questions for the authors. Please comment and clarify.

1). The problems, methods, and significance in the introduction are not clearly explained.

2). More international references are recommended in the Introduction part.

3). Section 3 can be simplified. Please contain only essential information.

4). Abstract need to be revised to better present your result and the main conclusions of your work.

5). What are the ground stresses used in the model? How to simulate the goaf behavior, which should play a significant role in mining-induced stress distributions.

6). Figures are needed in Sect. 5.2 to clearly demonstrate the reinforcement measures at different locations.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Hello. Thank you for making good changes in the manuscript and making it closer to a scientific article. I worried that the manuscript has a problem in terms of referencing and the references are few and not of good quality. To some extent, the references have been refined, but it is not enough. The referencing is so careless that there are many problems in the writing, for example, lines 706 to 719 of the reference numbers are wrong, and it seems that this was done only to satisfy the reviewers and the study of the references was not done. Although this article is not bad, I emphasize again that it is not suitable for a Q1 journal, but anyway, the editor has decided to change my opinion from Reject.

Try to read the manuscript again and take my comments from the previous round seriously. I have read your article and I expect you to re-examine the previous round and apply your changes again.

If you have received information from a specific company, please mention it in the references. I noticed that part of the information (for example, section 2) was obtained from another place, but the reference was not given correctly.

Please make the photos of table 1 clearer or remove them.

I once said that the conclusion should be rewritten, but my points were not taken into account.

best regards

The English language is somewhat improved but should be reviewed by an English language editor.

Author Response

请参阅附件。

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors

Thanks you for improvements

Please add flow chart on manuscript.

You build a good flow chart in reviewers response cover letter! Please add that on manuscript.

Best regards

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx