Metal-Nails Waste and Steel Slag Aggregate as Alternative and Eco-Friendly Radiation Shielding Composites
, Bassam Abdelsalam Abdelsalam 1, Mohamed Amin 1, Ibrahim Saad Agwa 1,2 and Mohammad Farouk Abdelmagied 3
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Originality of the research can’t be found for the following reason:
1- This research is mainly focusing on adding used metal nails to the concrete mix as a recycled material ( I can’t see this applicable in reality ). Collecting used nail and recycling them is big time consuming and high cost issue as this type of recycled element is not easily available.
2- This research has replaced the coarse aggregate with 100% of steel slag, Would this be the optimum value to produce the best compressive strength ?
3- Corrosion issue is not investigated as 50% of content in the concrete mix is iron (Fe)
4- Conclusions are very poor and not giving any justification for the outcomes. It’s more like informal knowledge for the reader
TThe author should consider full scale elements to be tested to build up real results
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In this research article the authors studied the radiation shielding and mechanical properties of sustainable heavy weight concrete, produced from recycled metal waste. The “metal nail waste” partially replaced the fine aggregate while “electric arc furnace steel slag” was used as coarse aggregate replacement. It is an interesting issue in the context of circular economy.
Comments and Recommendation for the authors
Please replace in the Lines 34, 177, 332 the unit of measures from kg/m3 into kg/m3.
In Table 2, the unit of measure for superplasticizer it is also recommended to be specified.
In the Line 232 the words “it” should be replaced by “It”.
For a better follow-up and understanding of the results presented in the Figure 4(a), Figure 4(b), Figure 7, and Figure 8 please introduce for each analyzed recipe the values of unit weight, compressive and tensile strength, thickness, etc. There are two figures with the same name (Figure 4(b)). Therefore Figure 4(b) must be replaced by Figure 4(c). There are also two figures with the same number (Figure 5) which can be confusing for the reader. Please modify this.
Some additional information is needed to highlight the materials sustainability. For instance, the cost of recycled raw materials compared with traditional aggregate, their influence in mechanical characteristics, or environmental parameters of “sustainable heavy weight concrete”, etc.
Based on the results, please specify in the conclusion section which is the maximum percentage of waste which can partially replace the conventional aggregates in the production of concrete and which the field of their utilization in construction.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I have gone through carefully the content and would like to inform that the paper is easy to understand but extensive editing of English language and style is required. The conclusions are resulted from research presented in the paper. However, some items need to be completed. Some specific comments are as follows:
(1) Introduction: What is a hypothesis in this research? L63 “Metal nail waste”- please correct the size of font. In my opinion, Authors could better analyze the progress and problem of previous researchers.
(2) Experimental procedure: Figures 1,3 are unreadable. L149: Mfp.
(3) Experimental results: this chapter is well conducted. The discussion is missing so in my opinion the title of this chapter should be named- Experimental results and discussion. Figure 4c- please explain, why the value of the tensile/compressive ratio for M40 is higher than for M30?
(4) Conclusions: The conclusions are supported by the analysis of the data presented.
Author Response
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Author Response File: author_response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Reviewer's previous comments were not taken into consideration.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the improvements made to revised manuscript. A few other small suggestions can be viewed below.
The figure 5 must be referred in the body text.
The quality of the SEM needs to be improved; the scale bar is not visible.
Author Response
point 1:- Figure 5 has been referred to in section 3.2.3 line 292.
point 2:- The quality of the SEM has been improved.
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
The author has to show the following :
1- Mixes used other than 100% slag to assure that this is the optimum mix. Yet 100% slag is not the optimum based on much previous literature.
2-Author has to add results after curing the samples for 28 - 90 days in water and to present the effect of corrosion on the strength of cubes and cylinders.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
