A Review on Laser-Assisted Joining of Aluminium Alloys to Other Metals

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper provides a review of dissimilar materials welding with laser beam and laser-assisted techniques for joining of Al-Fe, Al-Cu and Al-Ti. Most of the citations and reviews of your paper are with neutral/observational comments that only state what the cited work has reported but lack of critical analysis and identifying the research gaps, limitations and opportunities for further research.

(1) Please, rewrite the Abstract.

(2) The content of the review paper needs to be academically inquisitive, make a critical analysis of the research.

(3) Personally，I think the authors should summarize the main problems and trend of development.

(4) The following papers have good relevance and are helpful for improvement, for reference only.

Recent research and development status of laser cladding: A review[J]. Optics & Laser Technology.

Research on remanufacturing strategy for 45 steel gear using H13 steel powder based on laser cladding technology[J], Journal of Manufacturing Processes.

Microstructure and mechanical properties of parts formed by ultrasonic vibration-assisted laser cladding of Inconel 718[J], Surface & Coatings Technology.

Author Response

Manuscript no: metals-1380245

Title: A review on laser-assisted joining of aluminium alloys to other metals

Response letter to the reviewer #1

We are grateful and thank reviewers for the valuable comments and suggestions which are helpful to further improvement in quality of the manuscript. Provided article is comprehensive review, thus many questions from reviewers were expected since it is not possible to satisfy every reviewer considering its wide scope. After revision, the main text was significantly modified and contracted. Lack of some articles is mainly due to enormous amount of published work and some of them may be missed. Grammar was extensively reviewed before resubmission. Most relevant changes were done with track changes and yellow background. Please note, the text in many places was modified without track changes (small modifications, paraphrasing, restructuring of sentence, articles, etc.).

Comments from the reviewer and answers:

Critical points of the reviewer:

Statement: lack of critical analysis, identifying the research gaps, limitations and opportunities for further research

Answer: The provided review is not a ”critical review” but more as narrative review. The article presents main challenges (within the text) and how to overcome these issues. Research gaps, limitations and opportunities were rewritten in a special chapter.

Comment 1: Please, rewrite the Abstract.

Answer: the abstract has been completely rewritten.

Comment 2: The content of the review paper needs to be academically inquisitive, make a critical analysis of the research.

Answer: the critical point of view has been revised, updated and moved to a special subsection.

Comment 3: Personally, I think the authors should summarize the main problems and trend of development.

Answer: a new chapter was introduced with summary, discussions of challenges, and future trends.

Answer to comment 4: suggested papers were noted and one of them (most relevant) was in

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript seems to be very interesting and can be accepted after minor addition.

" Authors are required to make a new section of discussing the critical issues associated with laser assisted joining of aluminum alloys and give some comments about the future prospects that how those issues can be handled."

Author Response

Manuscript no: metals-1380245

Title: A review on laser-assisted joining of aluminium alloys to other metals

Response letter to the reviewer #2

We are grateful and thank reviewers for the valuable comments and suggestions which are helpful to further improvement in quality of the manuscript. Provided article is comprehensive review, thus many questions from reviewers were expected since it is not possible to satisfy every reviewer considering its wide scope. After revision, the main text was significantly modified and contracted. Lack of some articles is mainly due to enormous amount of published work and some of them may be missed. Grammar was extensively reviewed before resubmission. Most relevant changes were done with track changes and yellow background. Please note, the text in many places was modified without track changes (small modifications, paraphrasing, restructuring of sentence, articles, etc.).

Comments from the reviewer and answers:

Comment from the reviewer:

Statement: Authors are required to make a new section of discussing the critical issues associated with laser assisted joining of aluminium alloys and give some comments about the future prospects that how those issues can be handled.

Answer: after comprehensive revision, we introduced a special section indicating critical issues and future prospects. 

Reviewer 3 Report

The language of the paper should be revised. Some sections are repetitive. I think the sections should be simplified. 

Author Response

Manuscript no: metals-1380245

Title: A review on laser-assisted joining of aluminium alloys to other metals

Response letter to the reviewer #3

We are grateful and thank reviewers for the valuable comments and suggestions which are helpful to further improvement in quality of the manuscript. Provided article is comprehensive review, thus many questions from reviewers were expected since it is not possible to satisfy every reviewer considering its wide scope. After revision, the main text was significantly modified and contracted. Lack of some articles is mainly due to enormous amount of published work and some of them may be missed. Grammar was extensively reviewed before resubmission. Most relevant changes were done with track changes and yellow background. Please note, the text in many places was modified without track changes (small modifications, paraphrasing, restructuring of sentence, articles, etc.).

Comments from the reviewer and answers:

Comment from the reviewer:

Statement: The language of the paper should be revised. Some sections are repetitive. I think the sections should be simplified.

Answer: a comprehensive grammar revision was employed. Some statements were moved to more relevant places and contracted. Many repeating sentences were deleted or moved, joined with other statements.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The author answered my question well and the manuscript was recommended for acceptance.