An Investigation of a Floor Treatment Plan for In-Pit Dumps with an Underlying Weak Layer

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

you have prepared an interesting manuscript on a current topic.

However, the analytical review is very narrow. The problem of weak floors during dumping is much broader and there are decisions not mentioned by you. (for example, Kutepov et al., in: Geomechanics and Geodynamics of Rock Masses - Selected Papers from the 2018 European Rock Mechanics Symposium, EUROCK 2018, 2018, 0, pp. 1–7). 

You also correctly mention that the problem of internal dumps is of ecological importance. It would be possible to shed some light on this topic and reflect it in the conclusions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

n this paper, a new staged floor treatment scheme is proposed, and different floor treatment rates are determined according to shear properties, discontinuous structural plane and limit equilibrium theory. In the introduction, information is given regarding the necessity of the research carried out, with references to the existing level of knowledge on the studied topic. The research methodology is appropriate and the results are presented in an adequate manner. The writing is standardized, the thinking is clear. But at the same time, I also found some problems in the paper. I hope the author can revise it well to improve the quality of the paper.

（1）Cohesion and internal friction angle should be reflected in Figure 3 and Figure 4.

（2）The parameters with physical significance in the manuscript should be italicized.

（3）The unit in the manuscript should pay attention to superscript, such as m3.

（4）The size of numerical simulation modeling, boundary conditions and physical and mechanical parameters of strata need to be introduced in detail.

（5）Please check the language typing and grammatical errors throughout the manuscript.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

I have reviewed the entitled manuscript sustainability-2270180 “An Investigation of Floor Treatment Plan for In-pit Dumps with underlying Weak Layer”. A suitable research work is reported in this manuscript. There are fundamental drawbacks to developing results and comparing them that need to be addressed. Some of the major problems in this manuscript are listed below:

1- In the Abstract section, it is necessary to quantify the results and add some information about the model validation results.

2- Literature review is well done. But authors should use more original articles.

3- Reference should be mentioned for following sentence:

“Natural moisture content of the rock sample was determined from drying method 69 according to national standard GB/T 23561.6-2009.”

4- Specify the minimum and maximum height of the pits for the figures 8, 9 and 12.

5- Validation of the numerical model is not clear. Authors should provide more details of model validation.

6- Add the following sentence to the first conclusion section:

“The main findings of this study are as follows:”

Also, this section is very qualitative and needs to be rewritten and strengthened.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

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