Evaluating the Residual Life of Long-Term Equipment Made of Structural and Heat-Resistant Steel by Using the Structural–Mechanical Criterion

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper presented a method to evaluate the residual life of long-term equipment by using structural-mechanical criterion. The results and conclusions are very interesting, and have a good guiance on the life assessment of nuclear components. The manuscript can be published before considering following minor comments, such as, More data are suggested to provided for the alculation of the residual operating time; Eq.(1) is not numbered; the conclusions are too long, and it suggested be simplified.

GOOD

Author Response

Dear reviewer!
Thank you very much for your interest in the publication and for your comments. We have made the appropriate adjustments and provided comments on them: additional data on the calculation of the residual operating time of the equipment are provided in Table 2; equation (1) is numbered; conclusions are simplified and divided into 6 points.

Reviewer 2 Report

In their work, the authors presented the results of research on the operation of elements made of structural and heat-resistant steel. To assess the occurrence of material defects, the authors proposed the use of non-destructive methods based on acoustic and magnetic methods. Then, it was proposed to determine the service life of the elements based on the structural and mechanical criterion. Despite the rather interesting subject of research, the work contains many inaccuracies that should be clarified.

1.       Lack of a clearly formulated research goal in relation to the current state of knowledge.

2.       The authors in the paper describe metallographic tests, but in the paper they do not provide any results confirming that these tests were carried out. Therefore, it is difficult to assess the credibility of the presented research.

3.       The authors did not provide any validation results that would confirm the correctness of the assumptions made.

4.       The paper presents only random information, the research methodology, the method of verifying the results, and the method of calibrating the adopted criterion are not described.

5.       In the conclusions, the authors indicate that the calculation results give high accuracy and have been tested in industrial conditions. However, there is no reference to such results in the work.

The work has been written in a cursory manner, leaving a large area that needs to be supplemented or clarified. Conclusive research results verifying the presented information have not been presented. There is also no detailed description of the research methodology. Therefore, the work needs to be thoroughly edited and supplemented before it is published in the Journal of Metals.

Author Response

Dear reviewer!
Thank you very much for your interest in the publication and for your comments. We have made the appropriate adjustments and provided comments on them:
1. The purpose of the study in relation to the current state of knowledge is formulated in the "Introduction" section.
2. Images of the microstructure of the samples corresponding to different states are added in Figure 4.
3. Additional data on the calculation of the residual operating time of the equipment are presented in Table 2 as a comparison of the calculation results in an automated system with the calculation results performed on the same equipment by an expert organization, which confirms the correctness of our assumptions.
4. In the section “2. Materials and Methods” added information on the method of processing and verifying information. The calibration of the adopted criterion was carried out by comparing the calculation results in an automated system with the calculation results performed on the same equipment by an expert organization (Table 2).
5. Comparison and verification of the calculation results in an automated system with the calculation results performed on the same equipment by an expert organization are presented in Table 2.
We hope that the corrections and additions made have made it possible to fill in all the gaps.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper deals with the assessment of the residual life of long-term equipment made of structural and heat-resistant steel by using structural-mechanical criterion. The authors develop a structural-mechanical criterion that can reflect the revealed relationships between the structural and substructural states, internal stress fields and stable localization of deformations, and develop a methodology for evaluating the residual life of long-term equipment. I think there are some areas that need to be improved in the paper before final acceptance.

1. In the "Introduction" section, the innovation and research significance of the paper need to be clearly presented.

2. Are the two types of steel studied widely representative?

3. The drawing quality of the pictures need to be improved, , for example, Figure 2.

4. It seems that the results of the study are not fully revealed, for example, the microstructure of the samples, which was mentioned in the test method.

Author Response

Dear reviewer!
Thank you very much for your interest in the publication and for your comments. We have made the appropriate adjustments and provided comments on them:
1. In the "Introduction" section, the innovativeness and research significance of the article are clearly presented, which follow from the purpose of the work.
2. The types of steels considered in the article were chosen due to the fact that they are most widely represented at the thermal power plants of the Kemerovo region - Kuzbass.
3. The rendering quality of all drawings has been improved by changing the image contrast.
4. Images of the microstructure of the samples corresponding to different states are added in Figure 4.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The revised text can be accepted.