Mechanical Analysis of Palm-Fiber-Reinforced Sand through Triaxial Tests

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1) in Abstract section and all over the text it is drained drained not drainage test

2)Last statement of the Abstract not clear, need to revise

3) Second statement in the introduction need a support references such as 

4) The introduction in general need to revise to be more clear, especially first paragraph.

5) In Table 1 how the sand has two different maximum density?

6) obviously there is boundary condition interaction due to length of fiber and the diameter of specimens  ,therefore the results and conclusions are not conclusive

7) It is clear from Figure 10 there is an operant cohesion, so why you enforced it to zero, even though it is well known pure sand has no cohesion but due to reinforcement there is an apparent one

Author Response

Dear reviewer, please see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper entitled ‘Mechanical analysis of palm fiber reinforced sand by triaxial tests’ carried out triaxial tests to investigate palm fiber-reinforced sand. The test results indicate that palm fibers are beneficial to enhance the shear strength of sand. However, the fibers play a key role in enhancing the critical shear strength of sand rather than the peak shear strength of sand. The test results indicate that Palm fiber can help the sand sample against larger strain. Critical shear strength is associated with fiber content rather than fiber length; while the ability to against larger strains is associated with fiber length rather than fiber content. These are indeed new findings are this paper, which can provide references for geotechnical engineering. Therefore, it’s valuable for the paper publication. However, there are some questions need to explain or respondent as follows:

1. In this paper the authors selected palm fibers with different fiber lengths and fiber content as reinforcement materials for testing. I was interested in how the fiber ratio was determined in the experiment?

2. In Table 1, what is the effect of the physical parameters of quartz sand on the triaxial test?

3.What are the advantages of using the CO2 exhaust method during the test?

4 Why should the CO2 ventilation pressure be controlled not more than 20 kPa?

5. In the discussion, the authors analyzed the volume change and void ratio change of fiber-reinforced sand under different confining pressure and fiber content, and what is the relationship between volume change and void ratio?

6. In the test setup, axial deformation needs to be controlled by 20%, and the void ratio analysis indicates that the addition of fibers increases axial deformation. Are the statements before and after inconsistent?

7. In this article, how the critical failure state is identified?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

No comments. Authors reply to my comments are satisfactory. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx