Design of In Situ Metal Matrix Composites Produced by Powder Metallurgy—A Critical Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This work aims not only to review the state of the art on MMCs—including cermets—obtained in situ by powder metallurgy, but also to dissect key aspects related to the development of such materials in order to establish theoretical criteria for decision making before and along experiments. The article is well written, but the following points have to be addressed before the acceptance. I do not think it can be published on this journal.

(1) The layout of the paper is not good enough, please revise carefully.

(2) Eq 11 appears before eq 9 and eq 10.

(3) Is it possible to add more example images of reinforcement distribution and interface, not just schematics?

(4) As far as I know, there are studies on the preparation of the powders of MMCs using gas atomization, instead of ball milling.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Firstly, thank you very much for the feedback, and the agility in revising such a lengthy manuscript in such a rapid interval of time. We also appreciated very much the idea on providing figures to describe the interface and distribution.

(1) The layout of the paper is not good enough, please revise carefully →  We have now formatted the manuscript properly , as it has previously been  submitted without proper formatting because Metals accepts free format submission. According to the instruction given in the guide for authors, the paper has now been formatted upon the  revision stage.

(2) Eq 11 appears before eq 9 and eq 10.an incorrect entry in the literature →  solved, marked in "track changes"”

(3) Is it possible to add more example images of reinforcement distribution and interface, not just schematics →  they have been added in the tables 1 and 2. Tables have been reformatted to fit the figures. It is marked in "track changes"”

(4) As far as I know, there are studies on the preparation of the powders of MMCs using gas atomization, instead of ball milling. → We have added a subsection (3.2.5) addressing that. It is also marked as "track changes"”

The revisions suggested by the other authors are also marked using "track changes" along the new version of this manuscript. The manuscript is hereby attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The design of in situ metal matrix composites produced by powder metallurgy is worthy of writing a review. The review established theoretical criteria for decision making before and along experiments. In addition, the authors cited a sufficient number of references in their manuscript. In addition to some English writing needs to be further improved, I think this manuscript can be published.

Author Response

Firstly, thank you very much for the feedback, and the agility in revising such a lengthy manuscript in such a rapid interval of time. 

We have now formatted the manuscript properly , as it has previously been  submitted without proper formatting because Metals accepts free format submission. According to the instruction given in the guide for authors, the paper has now been formatted upon the  revision stage.

Some revisions suggested by the other authors are also marked in which "track changes" along the new version of this manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

The article is a precious summary of data on a wide range of Al-matrix composites of various types. It is based on a very large database of current publications, which should be considered a great plus of this work. In principle, there are no substantive comments to work, I have included a few small suggestions below:

In Introduction is:… such as additive manufacturing [2], 3] - an incorrect entry in the literature

Figure 3, poor selection of colors worsens the visibility

Equation 3 has a different indent than the others

Below table 1 there is the next sub-item that coincides with the table border

Line 252 - 254 line continuity problems

When describing grinding, always pay attention to the type of balls.

Fig 15 - Please change the line color for Al  from gray to black, it will improve readability

Fig 17 - is it possible to slightly increase the font size in the descriptions in the picture?

best regards

reviever

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Firstly, thank you very much for the feedback, and the agility in revising such a lengthy .manuscrip in such a rapid interval of time. The manuscript has been revised accordingly and some commentaries on the feedback are listed below

In Introduction is:… such as additive manufacturing [2], 3] - an incorrect entry in the literature →  solved, marked in "track changes"”

Figure 3, poor selection of colors worsens the visibility → solved, marked in "track changes"”

Equation 3 has a different indent than the others → solved, marked in "track changes"”

Below table 1 there is the next sub-item that coincides with the table border →  solved, marked in "track changes"”

Line 252 - 254 line continuity problems — solved. marked in track changes

When describing grinding, always pay attention to the type of balls. →  unfortunately, many of the reviewed articles do not supply such information. Moreover, for the sake of brevity, we have tried to provide in our examples only details that are essential to illustrate a certain topic in the discussion, as further detail— such as liquid media, type and size of balls— can be found in the reference itself.

Fig 15 - Please change the line color for Al  from gray to black, it will improve readability → solved, marked in "track changes"”

Fig 17 - is it possible to slightly increase the font size in the descriptions in the picture? → This picture was extracted from another work. In order to improve readability, we have now increased the whole picture size in the manuscript

We have also formatted the manuscript according to metals template , as it has previously been  submitted without proper formatting because Metals accepts free format submission. According to the instruction given in the guide for authors, the paper has now been formatted upon the  revision stage.