Comment

Response

This paper presents the formulation of the 3D Morgenstern-Price Method (3DMPM) investigated for both real landslide cases with complex geometries and hypothetical spherical slope cases. Please confirm a few things.

The authors appreciate the reviewer’s recognition on the contribution of this paper, especially for the completeness of structure and the versatility in geotechnical slope applications.

1)     It was said that the four points presented in the Conclusions could provide insight in understanding internal stress evolution in landslides. What kind of relationship do they have?

Thanks for the reviewer’s observations for the accuracy and precision of concluding remarks. The soil stochastic effect on the slope stability is much more focused instead of internal stress evolution in this work.

To address the reviewer’s comment, the authors rephased the context accordingly. [See highlighted text in section of Conclusion in the revised manuscript].

2)     5. Conclusion In the second part, it was said that the framework developed here has better accuracy and efficiency. Please explain on what basis you made this conclusion, and whether it is reasonable to draw such a conclusion through limited application.

The authors thank the reviewer for this observation. As suspected by the reviewer, it is not justified to conclude that the accuracy of the present framework is better than Monte-Carlo technique. However, the superiority of the present method in terms of efficiency can be reasonably observed than that of Monte-Carlo technique (i.e., running time: 2 seconds versus 16292 seconds as presented in Table 3).

To address the reviewer’s comment, the corresponding sentence was rephased. [See highlighted text in section of Conclusion in the revised manuscript]

3) As an explanation of Table 1, it was stated that the safety factor of 3DMPM was 0.9403, which was smaller than the safety factor of 0.945 by Chen’s technique. Here, the safety factor applied 8 iterations was used as the final safety factor. What is the reason?

Thanks for the reviewer’s careful observation. As described in step 13 of the programming implementation in subsection 2.3, the iteration was terminated when the tolerance was achieved, and the currently obtained value of safety factor was used as the final solution. For the example of Power Plant Slope of the Tianshengqiao II Project, eight iterations were consumed to achieve the convergence in determination of safety factor.

To address the reviewer’s comment, the respective context was reworded to enhance the readability. [See highlighted text in subsection 3.1 in the revised manuscript]

Comment

Response

Dear Authors

Presented study seems to be well composed and follows the IMRaD style of scientific contribution. Presented research might form valuable contribution to the field of knowledge (application of response surfaces in reliability computations).

I'd like however, point some shortcomings of various range. From editorial problems concerning reference format to some ethical concerns about inappropriate citations.

The authors appreciate the reviewer’s recognition on the novelty of the presented work and the achievement in academic writings for satisfying requirements by IMRaD style.

1) References in the Introduction are limited to Chinese literature (with some rare exceptions). Authors use "group references" like [8-12] and [19-24]. In my opinion, at least in the introductory part, every cited paper needs to be introduced individually to show their importance for the "state of the art".

The authors are thankful for the reviewer’s observations and suggestion.

To address the reviewer’s comment, the literature review in introduction was reconstructed by replacing a couple of Chinese literatures with international literatures, and rephasing the context relevant to group references. [See highlighted text in section of Introduction in the revised manuscript]

2) Many references seem to be irrelevant concerning main subject of the current study. References 7, 10, 15, 17, 18, 26, 28, 33, 36, 39, 47, 50, 53, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 63 are not related to slope stability. Please justify their importance for your study or remove the "irrelevant ones" from reference list.

Many thanks for the reviewer’s insightful suggestions.

To address the reviewer’s comment, the authors double-checked the references carefully and removed the irrelevant ones to enhance the quality of citation of this work. [See highlighted text in sections of Introduction and References in the revised manuscript]

3) Format of the references is not according to MDPI template.

Thanks for the reviewer’s reminders.

To address the reviewer’s comment, the authors modified the format of the references according to MDPI template. [See highlighted text in section of  References in the revised manuscript]

4) Figure 1 - rotational axis does not really look like rotational axis.

Many thanks for the reviewer’s observation.

To address the reviewer’s comment, the rotational axis was modified to improve its illustrative capability. [See highlighted part in Fig.1 in subsection 2.1 in the revised manuscript]