Apparent Quality and Service Performance Evaluation of SCFFC in Tunnel Secondary Lining
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article deals with the optimization of SCC as a fair-faced concrete. The study is in line with the topic of the special issue, the experimental plan is thorough, and the conclusions are well justified with the results of the testing, so from a scientific point of view, the study deserves a good overall assessment.
Some points for improvement would be the following:
- A thorough revision of the language is required. There are a multitude of rare, unusual expressions, difficult to understand, and the language is in general, not professional.
- The structure of the article needs to be revised to clarify: objectives, interest, and main conclusions. The exposition of the research objectives is confusing. The experimental part is good, it is comprehensive, but the article is very hard to understand. It is difficult, from the reviewer's point of view, to give specific indications to solve this, but right now this article is a mess.
- It is imperative to improve the quality of the images throughout the article, most of them are not even readable.
- It is necessary to review the introduction with these questions in mind: what do other authors say about topics that can influence me in my research? In fair-faced concrete, admixtures, etc. Right now, the bibliography on page 3 merely cites articles (what they study) but without conveying their conclusions or how they influence the starting point of the present investigation
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript presented a well-organized research paper. However, following comments are advised to be considered before acceptance:
- Abstract
Abstract is well written and ok.
- Introduction
Please highlight the difference between conventional concrete and SCC.
The mention in the last paragraph, but there are few studies on the filling performance and apparent quality of concrete. Where are few studies? What is difference between theses and studies and these studies? The novelty of this study is not ok.
- Experimental
Where is testing setup? Which standard is used? Where are the criteria for self-compacting concrete? which standard is used SCC? How I identify this SCC? Is there any standard for SCFFC?
Why you add fly ash?
Generally, SCC required higher w/c but here is 0.44?
How you select fly ash 93 kg/m3?
Group distribution is confusing.
Many technical issue like we lift the slump cone vertically etc etc
4 Results
Slump testing is very confusing, for example
According to the requirements of SCFFC criterion, the slump extension of concrete with first-class filling-ability is 550mm~650mm, T500 is not less than 2s;
In slump flow, diameter is measured but here is height
The diameter range 650 mm to 800mm.
T500 is range is less than 2 sec .
Air entraining agent/‰ keep constant
Why group 9 increased the distance while group 12 is less.
Table 9
0.3 deformer decreased the strength
0.5 deformer increased the strength
0.7 deformer decreased the strength
Strange?
Where microstructure analysis like tga,xrd, sem etc etc
5.Conclusion
Ok
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The article has improved greatly in writing and ease of comprehension, which was its biggest problem.
I still think that the introduction should focus more on the findings of other researchers than on what has been studied, but right now at least the novelty of the research is clear, so it is satisfactory.
The images are still unclear, but I guess that is due to the poor quality of the version to review. They need to be improved in the final print version.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors addressed almost all of my comments. However please check English, I still observed we in many places in many manuscript. Please do not used we , used in this research or in this study or the authors used etc
Also please extend your introduction part, there is very few reference, however there is very good papers on scc, so it is request to add some of recent publish papers.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
