Lead-Free Ceramics in Prestressed Ultrasonic Transducers
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis study evaluated a standard BLT using various piezoelectric materials. Furthermore, authors emphasized that "The aim of this publication is to show to what extent the lead-free piezoelectric ceramics, some of which are now available on the market as samples, are suitable for use in prestressed ultrasonic transducers of medium power." For this study, authors designed and prepared a simple base oscillator that was realized by means of lead-containing and lead-free ring ceramics. In results, authors successfully carried out that two different lead-free piezoelectric materials have been integrated into a standard BLT. Furthermore, authors successfully demonstrated that those prepared lead-free BLT performed same acoustic power to a water lad as a PZT standard materials and showed advantages considering heat up. Accordingly, it believed that "from the definition of problem in lead-free piezoelectric materials relating to the practical applications as author's purpose to experimental performance" has been well-designed and completed. Therefore, it seems that this study is worth considering an acceptance in Actuators.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
please find our response in the attached document
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe following are my comments and suggested corrections for this manuscript.
- On lines 66, 73, 77, and 87, paragraph formatting errors occurred. It seems the citations cause the last portion of the paragraphs to be started on a new line.
- At the end of the sentence on line 73, did you mean sodium potassium niobate (KNN) instead of ANN? Could you please spell out the compound names followed by the acronym when first stating the compound in the text? You did this for PZT on line 34.
- The sentence on line 105 - 107, you end this sentence with "until now." Your point here was that there was only one manufacturer of pre-loaded lead-free transducers. Yet, how you ended the sentence would suggest there are more than one vendor now. Could you clarify?
- In Figure 1, could you please indicate the piezoelectric elements?
- Please give a citation for your statement on lines 162 - 165. Specifically, when you state "it is a good idea to stabilize the electromechanical terminal behaviour of the transducers by means of short-term continuous operation with increased amplitude."
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Minor grammatical errors were observed throughout the manuscript. Editing for grammar should be done.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
please find our response in the attached document
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease find attached.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
It needs to be improved.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
please find our response in the attached document
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments on paper:
1. An introduction part gives a poor idea of what has been done in this area at present. There are many different works devoted to lead-free ceramics, and even those currently used [for instance, 10.1016/j.ultras.2011.03.009, 10.1088/1361-665X/aad530, 10.3390/s22229006, 10.1109/TUFFC.2021.3065207, 10.1016/j.apacoust.2024.110188, /10.1016/j.ultras.2008.11.003, 10.1142/S2010135X15300029, https://www.seco-sensor.de/en/lead-free-ultrasonic-transducers/] and single crystals [for instance, 10.1109/TUFFC.2021.3058326, 10.1109/TUFFC.2013.2631, 10.1109/TUFFC.2018.2836434, 10.1016/j.pmatsci.2014.06.001].
2. It should be also noted that aim of the paper does not follow from the introduction.
3. Authors speculate about challenges for lead free ceramics. It is not clear which one exactly.
4. Line 130, “Since piezoelectric ceramics are expensive”. PZT ceramics is cheap enough.
5. Authors should provide the compositions of the ceramics.
6. How were rings clamped for admittance measurements?
7. In order to prove the statement “On the basis of these key figures, it becomes clear that lead-free materials are clearly lagging behind lead-containing standard ceramics”, comparison with any “standard ceramics” should be given.
8. Line 258, statement “Temperature was measured directly on the piezoelectric ceramics”. It is not clear which method was used.
9. Fig.4. Using legend on the graph would be more convenient. What is the difference between solid and dashed lines? What mode of oscillations was used for frequency change measurements?
10. How burn-in process affects the parameters of resonators? It should be shown clearly in the text.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
please find our response in the attached document
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe reviewer appreciates the authors for addressing the previous comments. The authors have devoted enormous effort in the revision. Still, the reviewer would like to point out a few further comment, regarding the author's reply.
1. the deviation of experimental result: It is very important for the readers to understand the variation of measurement among samples of same compositions. The reviewer understand that there could be variation among manufactured product and so-called "not optimized" device design. If presenting the deviation to the readers is crucial, the reviewer would like to suggest abstracting key parameters from the overlapping curves and showing some statistical average value along with s.d., instead of showing complicated overlapping data. These original data can be provided in some supplementary file.
2. introduction: the reviewer appreciate the authors for providing more detailed statements in this section. However, the reviewer believe it has become more lengthy than the previous version. A good introduction should summarize relevant background into a few compacted paragraphs and redirecting readers to literatures when necessary, instead of elaborate something that was already well discussed in these literatures.
A paper is meant to deliver key discovery from the authors to others. Clearity and simplicity are the fundamentals for a good paper.
The paper should be accepted after a minor revision.
Finally, the reviewer appreciates the study. Looking forward to see more study in the relevant field in the future.
Author Response
Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you very much for reading again the manuscript and giving us further comments. Here is our response:
- the deviation of experimental result: It is very important for the readers to understand the variation of measurement among samples of same compositions. The reviewer understand that there could be variation among manufactured product and so-called "not optimized" device design. If presenting the deviation to the readers is crucial, the reviewer would like to suggest abstracting key parameters from the overlapping curves and showing some statistical average value along with s.d., instead of showing complicated overlapping data. These original data can be provided in some supplementary file.
We now followed your advice to reduce data in the figures of the manuscript. Thereby the comparison between the materials becomes clearer. It was not possible to abstract key parameters for most of the measurements, as time for resubmission was only 2 days. We decided to add the former figures as supplementary ones.
- introduction: the reviewer appreciate the authors for providing more detailed statements in this section. However, the reviewer believe it has become more lengthy than the previous version. A good introduction should summarize relevant background into a few compacted paragraphs and redirecting readers to literatures when necessary, instead of elaborate something that was already well discussed in these literatures.
We followed your advice and shortened the introduction.
- A paper is meant to deliver key discovery from the authors to others. Clearity and simplicity are the fundamentals for a good paper.
Some sentences have been clarified, as also promoted by another reviewer. Please have a look at the new manuscript version with highlighted changes.
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI think paper could be published in a present form.
The only remark for authors. It would be better to emphasize aim of the paper, as well as main results and challenges.
Author Response
Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you very much for reading again the manuscript and giving us further comments. Here is our response:
Comment: The only remark for authors. It would be better to emphasize aim of the paper, as well as main results and challenges.
Response: We changed some sentences within the abstract, the introduction and the conclusions. We hope that will satisfy your request. Please have a look at the updated manuscript with highlighted changes.
