The Effect of Ce on the Microstructure, Superplasticity, and Mechanical Properties of Al-Mg-Si-Cu Alloy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The review is in attachment.

Best regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The co-authors are grateful to reviewer for the useful comments that allowed improving our manuscript. The manuscript was reread, and the English was corrected. The responses to the comments are given one by one in attached PDF document. The corresponded changes in the manuscript are marked-up with red colored text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Although the manuscript presents a very interesting topic, it doesn’t present the possibility of using the results in the real processes. In the paper I found the inaccuracies that should be explained and corrected.

1. There are no the rolling parameters: diameter of rolls, rolling speed, number of passes, etc.
2. What was a reason of the large spread of the temperature (±20°C)?
3. Usually the cold rolling sheets are used as a final product. That’s why, it is incomprehensible why study plasticity at high temperatures. The range of the strain rates range does not correspond to any technological process.
4. There is no information about initial mechanical parameters of the used materials.
5. The information in the sentence: The flow stress decreased with a decrease in strain rate and increase in temperature. is well known.
6. Strain hardening is a typical effect in the cold metal forming processes, not in the hot forming
7. The description of Fig. 7. There is no (c)
8. How was calculated the percent elongation?
9. Did appear a neck during the tensile tests?
10. The important results we can see in Table 3. We can see that the Ce addition decreased the YS and UTS values, while the elongation is almost on the same level. That’s why, from a practical point of view, the Ce supplement is unjustified.

For this reason it cannot be published like this.

Author Response

The co-authors are grateful to reviewer for the useful comments that allowed improving our manuscript. The responses to the comments are given one by one in attached PDF document. The corresponded changes in the manuscript are marked-up with red colored text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This study investigated the superplasticity and mechanical properties of Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloy according to the Ce content. Some revisions are suggested before publication.

1. In Figure 2, the result for the 0Ce specimen is indicated as (c). In order to explain the contents of lines 128-130, the caption of Figure 2 should be modified. There seems to have been a mistake in writing the caption for Figure 2.

2. How was the Mg2Si-phase differentiated in the 2Ce and 4Ce specimens? In Fig. 2b and c, it is confirmed that the fraction of Mg in the phase expected to be Mg2Si is low, unlike Fig. 2a. The Mg2Si-phase fraction in 2Ce and 4Ce specimens does not appear to be significant. 

3. Is there any mechanism or reference to explain lines 168-170? 

4. What does L1₂-phase in line 187 mean? 

5. It seems that the L12-phase was annihilated by the annealing heat treatment in the 4Ce specimen. In Figure 4 above, it seems that there are many precipitates. Does this mean that the precipitate is re-dissolved by heat treatment? 

6. The explanation of lines 222-228 and the result of Figure 7, and the correlation with Figure 6 do not match well. 

Author Response

The co-authors are grateful to reviewer for the useful comments that allowed improving our manuscript. The responses to the comments are given one by one in attached PDF document. The corresponded changes in the manuscript are marked-up with red colored text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer 3 Report

The author answered most of my comments. Therefore, I can accept this manuscript now.