Effect of Mica Content on Mechanical Properties of Yili River Valley Loess under the Impact of Freezing and Thawing
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is interesting. A few minor changes are required which are marked in the attached pdf. Minor typos and grammatical errors needs to be looked into.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: In the introduction: Change "sheer" to "shear".
Response 1: Thank you for the comment. "sheer" has been changed to "shear".
Point 2: In Section 2.1. A google earth image can be added along with the latitude and longitude of location.
Response 2: Thank you for the comment. A Google Earth image has been added as well as the location for latitude and longitude.
Figure 1. Illustration of sampling positions of Yili loess.
Point 3: In Section 2.1. Classify the soil also according to the particle size distribution curve.
What is specific gravity, Cu and Cc of this soil?.
Response 3: Thank you for the comment. This paper mainly studies the mechanical properties of loess with different mica contents under freeze-thaw cycles. Only some basic physical indexes were tested, and no specific gravity test was carried out, so the specific gravity of soil was not measured. For particle size analysis, the particle size smaller than 0.075mm accounted for a relatively small proportion and had no significant impact on the experimental results, so the particle size test did not further subdivide the soil particles smaller than 0.075mm. It is impossible to get accurate values of d30 and d10, so this paper fails to get accurate Cc and Cu.
Point 4: In Section 2.2. Without adding water?What was the PMC of soil?
Response 4: Thank you for the comment.Add water during the water content configuration process.The research content of this paper does not involve the study of PMC, and PMC is not of great significance to this study, so it is not measured.
Point 5: In Section 2.3.2. What was criteria of selection of these temperature and durations of freezing-thawing.
Response 5: Thank you for the comment. According to the climate characteristics of the study area, the average temperature of the local freeze-thaw period in recent 10 years was taken, the freezing and thawing temperatures were set at ‒15℃ and 15℃, respectively. To ensure the complete freezing and thawing of the sample and refer to previous research results, each freeze-thaw cycle was comprised of 15 h of freezing and 9 h of thawing.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In this manuscript, the influence of micacontent on the mechanical properties of the loess in Yili River Valley under freeze-thaw cycling conditions was studied using freeze-thaw cycling tests and unconsolidated and undrained triaxial shear tests. This research is interesting. However, there are some minor problems that need to be revised before the manuscript can be accepted.
(1) In the introduction: What is the significance of this study?
(2) In lines 102-108: According to what criteria is the particle size distribution curve measured?
(3) The first letters of some words in the first row of Table 2 are uppercase and some are lowercase. Please edit again.
(4) In line 114: ‘Firstly, the air-dried loess was crushed and passed through a 2-mm sieve.’ Why 2mm?
(5) In Section 2.3.2: The initial dry density of the sample needs to be introduced.
(6) In Fig. 4: The change of optimum water content with mica content needs to be explained.
(7) In lines 200-202: ‘The reason was that the friction between the particles increased with the increase in the initial confining pressure, which indirectly destroyed the consolidation force between the particles.’ First of all, intergranular force includes not only friction but also bite force (Wang et al. 2022). Secondly, consolidation force is an irregular expression. It is suggested to replace the previous analysis with the following sentences:
The reason was that the friction force and bite force between the particles increased with the increase in the initial confining pressure (Wang et al. 2022), which indirectly destroy the stable structure of the sample after consolidation.
The following literature is available for reference:
Dilatancy of the foundation filling material of island-reefs in the South China Sea. Construction and Building Materials. 2022, 323: 126524. DOI:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2022.126524.
(8) In Fig. 7: Why the peak shear strength decreases with the increase of the number of cycles?
(9) In lines 263-283: The author explains the change of strength parameters with mica content from the microscopic mechanism. However, these micro-level explanations are not supported by solid experimental data. In fact, the author can directly explain the change of strength parameters with mica content from the macro level. At the same stress level, except for individual dispersion data, the shear strength of the sample increases with the increasing mica content, which leading to an increase in the slope of the shear strength envelope and a decrease in the intercept of the samples with different mica content. That is, the friction angle of the sample increases with the increase of mica content, while the cohesion shows an opposite trend. For details, please refer to the following documents:
Particle size and confining-pressure effects of shear characteristics of coral sand: an experimental study. Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment. 2022, 81 (3): 97. DOI: 10.1007/s10064-022-02599-x.
The author can further explain the change of shear strength from the difference of initial void ratio (or initial dry density) of samples with different mica content.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: In the introduction: What is the significance of this study?
Response 1: Thank you for the comment. In the introduction: The significance of this study is“This study aims to reveal the mechanism of landslide disaster in Yili River Valley during freeze-thaw period and provide theoretical basis for the prevention and treatment of geological disasters in this area.”
Point 2: In lines 102-108: According to what criteria is the particle size distribution curve measured?
Response 2: Thank you for the comment. The particle size distribution curve was measured according to the Standard of Geotechnical Test Method.
Point 3:The first letters of some words in the first row of Table 2 are uppercase and some are lowercase. Please edit again.
Response 3: Thank you for the comment. Table 2 has been modified.
Table 2. Basic physical indicators.
|
Natural Moisture Content（%） |
Natural Density （g/cm3） |
Natural Dry Density（g/cm3） |
Plastic Limit（%） |
Liquid Limit（%） |
Maximum Dry Density（g/cm3） |
Optimum Moisture Content（%） |
|
21.04 |
1.62 |
1.34 |
16.15 |
27.05 |
1.76 |
16.28 |
Point 4: In line 114:‘Firstly, the air-dried loess was crushed and passed through a 2-mm sieve.’ Why 2mm?
Response 4: Thank you for the comment. According to Standard for Geotechnical Testing Method, in order to make the soil particles more uniform, the air-dried loess was crushed and passed through a 2-mm sieve.
Point 5: In Section 2.3.1: The initial dry density of the sample needs to be introduced.
Response 5: Thank you for the comment. The initial dry density of soil samples in the study area was 1.34g/cm3.
Point 6: In Fig. 4: The change of optimum water content with mica content needs to be explained.
Response 6: Thank you for the comment. Figure 4 has been modified.
Figure 5. Maximum dry density and Optimum moisture content of loess with different mica contents.
Point 7: In lines 200-202:‘The reason was that the friction between the particles increased with the increase in the initial confining pressure, which indirectly destroyed the consolidation force between the particles.’First of all, intergranular force includes not only friction but also bite force (Wang et al. 2022). Secondly, consolidation force is an irregular expression. It is suggested to replace the previous analysis with the following sentences:
The reason was that the friction force and bite force between the particles increased with the increase in the initial confining pressure (Wang et al. 2022), which indirectly destroy the stable structure of the sample after consolidation.
The following literature is available for reference:
Dilatancy of the foundation filling material of island-reefs in the South China Sea. Construction and Building Materials.2022,323:126524. DOI:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2022.126524.
Response 7: Thank you for the comment. It has been modified.
Point 8: In Fig. 7: Why the peak shear strength decreases with the increase of the number of cycles?
Response 8: Thank you for the comment. Because the loess with different mica content has weakened shear failure resistance ability and is more likely to reach the peak state under small strain, resulting in shear failure of soil.
Point 9: In lines 263-283: The author explains the change of strength parameters with mica content from the microscopic mechanism. However, these micro-level explanations are not supported by solid experimental data. In fact, the author can directly explain the change of strength parameters with mica content from the macro level. At the same stress level, except for individual dispersion data, the shear strength of the sample increases with the increasing mica content, which leading to an increase in the slope of the shear strength envelope and a decrease in the intercept of the samples with different mica content. That is, the friction angle of the sample increases with the increase of mica content, while the cohesion shows an opposite trend. For details, please refer to the following documents:
Particle size and confining-pressure effects of shear characteristics of coral sand: an experimental study. Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment. 2022, 81 (3): 97. DOI: 10.1007/s10064-022-02599-x.
The author can further explain the change of shear strength from the difference of initial void ratio (or initial dry density) of samples with different mica content.
Response 9: Thank you for the comment. Removed from microscopic mechanism explained. The variation of strength parameters with mica content is explained from the macro level. The higher the mica content, the smaller the cohesion. However,the internal friction angle presented an opposite trend.
For soil samples with different mica contents, the maximum dry density was used to prepare the samples. With the increase of mica content, the maximum dry density showed a decreasing trend and the soil strength weakened.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
