The Effect of the Water Table on the Bearing Capacity of a Shallow Foundation
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
It is an interesting topic; I recommend that the manuscript be accepted for publication. However, I have some suggestions and comments that I think could help to improve the manuscript.
1 – Regarding the references:
- Check that the format in the list of references is all homogeneous.
- Check also in the text, for example in line 66 it would be "Alencar et al.".
- I have observed that are many recent papers, which is very valuable. However, most parts of the manuscripts are by Chinese authors. This leads us to think that it is a topic of interest only in China, which is incorrect. That is why I would recommend adding articles by other authors.
2 - At what depth were the samples LTC1-2 and LTC2-4 obtained?
3 - Regarding the tables:
- The information in tables 2 and 3 would be better in text format since they are repeated for all the samples.
- In table 8 and figure 7 the units are missing.
- In tables 10 to 16, the columns 2 and 3 are unnecessary the information already comes in the title
4 - The combination of cohesion and friction values seem high to me. Were they the expected ones for the soil in the area?
5 - Check the unit in figure 10.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
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Reviewer 2 Report
SUMMARY
A rather interesting article is presented for review, which is devoted to an actual construction topic: shallow foundations. The problem associated with the effect of water table on bearing capacity of shallow foundation is very important, so the authors devoted their study to such an important problem.
It should be noted the good methodological apparatus of the authors, the great work done in terms of the analysis of the literature on the research topic, a large number of graphs and obtained dependencies, that is, the authors demonstrated a high command of the methodological apparatus, analytical ability and mathematical processing.
The results obtained by them are also important for science and practice. The article is of some interest, but needs some improvement. The reviewer's comments are given below.
COMMENTS
1. The Abstract is not presented in the form in which we would like to see it. It is necessary to concretize the solved scientific problem and avoid well-known formulations and simple sentences. The Abstract should briefly and concisely summarize the main essence of the problem in the following sequence: the problem being solved, the scientific result obtained, its qualitative characteristics, and its quantitative characteristics. Then the Abstract will clearly reflect the work done by the authors.
2. In the Introduction, the authors analyzed certain literary sources, but the topic with shallow foundations deserves more attention in the opinion of the reviewer. It is necessary to present 35-40 sources on the research topic and give their deeper analysis. In addition, the results of the literature review are presented in a purely textual form; some quantitative characteristics should be added that reflect the impact in percentages or some relative values. Then it will be possible to understand the level of effectiveness of the study.
3. A research program should be added, because the article as a whole looks somewhat ponderous and needs to be visualized in terms of flowcharts, graphs, methodology diagrams.
4. I would like to see more information about the applied methods at the beginning of section 2. As a rule, section 2 in such publications is a description of the materials and methods given in the study.
5. Line 133 provides information that the initial soil sample with an annular knife of a certain area and height was previously prepared in the laboratory. Some preamble should be given here in order to clarify the criteria for selecting samples and materials for research.
6. The uniformity and oversaturation of section 2 with tables with bare results is striking. This is perceived by the reader not very well and gives the article heaviness. The author should consider options for optimizing the number of tables and the number of graphs. Maybe they should be placed in one figure, naming the graphs as 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d.
7. Section 3 "Influence of immersion on the bearing capacity of shallow buried foundation" plays a major role in the study, however, paragraphs 3, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 largely consist of bare text, after which there are a large number of tables in a row, starting from Table 8 and ending with Table 16. This again makes the manuscript very difficult to read. Tables and text should be rationally distributed among themselves.
8. In this form of the article, there is no Discussion section. This is unacceptable due to the fact that this is the main section, reflecting the scientific result of the author in comparison with the results of other authors. It should be supplemented and presented in detail. Without this, the article cannot be published.
9. The Conclusions section is, in principle, completed at a fairly high level, and the results of the authors are encouraging. As mentioned above, the References section should be supplemented to 40-45 sources, paying the most attention to sources published over the past 5 years.
10. In addition, the article needs some corrections in the style of the English language.
11. The general conclusion of the reviewer on the article is as follows: it is necessary to correct these comments and submit the article for re-reviewing.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
SUMMARY
The article submitted for review is written on a current topic, such as "The effect of water table on bearing capacity of shallow foundation." This is a fairly common problem in modern construction, so the article has a certain practical significance and a certain novelty.
The authors applied an interesting combination of applied and theoretical methods, described the research problem expressed in the fact that subsidence is an important part of engineering surveys and reservoir evaluation, which has a great influence on the safety and stability of building foundations. Therefore, a deep and systematic study of the problem of immersion is of great theoretical and applied engineering value.
The authors carried out large-scale studies and obtained a number of important results. The main result is that it was found that the maximum depth of impact on the safety of an independent foundation increased with an increase in the groundwater level and decreased with an increase in the depth of burial. Thus, the advantages of this article should be emphasized, but it is also necessary to pay attention to the shortcomings, which will be discussed below.
COMMENTS
1. The abstract to the article is presented in a blurred form, it is necessary to concretize the result obtained, presenting it more compactly and clearly.
2. It is necessary to more clearly formulate the problem that the study solves.
3. You should add a quantitative description of the scientific result obtained below to the abstract.
4. The introduction is made in a rather abstract form, for example, part of the first paragraph on lines 32-35 is characterized by eight references, while the text itself in these lines belongs to the well-known. Perhaps more attention should be paid to each of sources 1-8.
5. A similar remark can be applied to lines 41-44, where 9 references are presented in three sentences.
6. The Introduction section ends with the text that a dive zone has been established and the effect of foundation width and dive depth on the marginal safety depth has been studied. The Introduction section should be completed with a clear statement of the purpose and objectives of the study, as well as explanations of the scientific significance of the study.
7. It would be necessary to add research methods and a program of experimental research to the beginning of Section 2, presenting it in a more visual form.
8. Table 1 looks somewhat cumbersome. There is probably data congestion. It may be worthwhile to optimize this table. In addition, tables 2, 3, 4 look of the same type and are very difficult to perceive for the reader.
9. The same remark can be applied to figures 1–4. You should pay attention to their similarity. In addition, it is methodologically correct to arrange some kind of textual presentation of the information obtained with the help of figures and tables and make a smooth transition from the second section to the third.
10. Figure 5 should have been presented in a higher resolution due to its low quality. The same remark applies to Figure 6 and to Figure 7.
11. Graphs in Figures 9 and 10 are not very informative. It is probably worthwhile to provide a more detailed processing of the obtained graphical dependence by adding more data, for example, by comparing the obtained data with other studies by other authors, since the presented dependences reflect, for example, the effect of the foundation width on the safe depth. There is a large amount of research on this subject that could be added and thus discussed.
12. As for the “Discussion” section itself, it, as such, is not in the article, which makes it impossible to assess its scientific novelty. Add a Discussion section before the Conclusions section. The Discussion section should reflect the comparison of the obtained results with the results obtained earlier by other authors.
13. The Conclusion are presented in a very succinct way and should be complemented by the prospects for the development of the study. Probably, for such an actual topic as shallow foundations, a larger number of fresh sources over the past 5 years should have been analyzed due to the large number of modern trends in this topic.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have made changes, the article has improved. No more comments.
