Design of a New TBM Integrated Cutter System Based on Analysis of Mechanical Properties and Dynamic Characteristics
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript introduces new concept of an integrated system for a TBM disc cutter. It includes interesting results for the readers and related academic fields. However, the manuscript should be improved in some aspects. The authors were recommended to revise the manuscript considering the major and minor comments as below.
1. The current title is too general. The authors are recommended to change the title to clearly specify the purpose, and used method/approaches of this study.
2. Citation form should be revised. The use of full name is not appropriate in an article. For example, in line 39: Huo Zunzhou -> Zhang et al., line 58: Meng Zhichao -> Meng et al.
3. There are too many grammatic errors. The manuscript should be proofread by a professional editor.
4. Line 45: Provide the definition of NFM.
5. The term “The author” should be revised into “We” or another word.
6. Line 79: Please specify the 32 parts of the cutter system.
7. Lines 81-83: It is not clear with explanations. Please show the process in Figure.
8. Table 1: Provided real and scaled values for each quantity in dimension analysis. Based on the information, please specify the scaled ratio for each quantity in Table 1.
9. Lines 128-129: Please provide the exact locations of strain gauges. In Figure 3, the locations were not clear for the reviewer.
10. Figure 5: too low resolution. Please revise.
11. The main concern is missing the comparison between the previous system and the proposed system. Therefore, it is difficult to find what are the improvements in the proposed system compared to the previous systems. The authors are highly recommended to provide the comparison results to clarify the improvements of the proposed cutter integrated system.
Author Response
Thank you for your helpful comments. Our point-by-point response is in the attachment.
Please check it and have a nice day.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Interesting research. Please replace 'scholars' to 'university' and 'enterprices' to 'companies'. In point 2.2. Please, write the program with which the calculations were performed, what are the initial and boundary conditions, what is the size of the discretization grid. Figure 2 - Next to the drawing you will need to have a front view to make it appear legible. Please comment why there is a maximum value at this point. Photo 5 - terrible quality. Please redraw in vector graphics program Fig. 9, 12 and 15. It is good to unify scale of displacement [mm].
In the article, the authors propose a new solution related to TBM cutter change robots. The analyzed research is important, therefore it should be properly described. The article describes numerical models and uses a special, laboratory test stand to reproduce the specific operation of TBM. The authors should accurately describe the results of the research, and also properly translate the text (native speaker required). It is clear that the text was written by engineers and not scientists. Conclusions relate to the topic. However, the subject should be clarified. It should be specific and try to explain it. The text needs to be organized, to improve in terms of language, there are many issues that need to be clarified and referred to the results of the research. Some of the figures are of very poor quality and are therefore illegible. Moreover charts have different units, which makes it difficult to compare the results of the research.
Author Response
Thank you for your helpful comments. Our point-by-point response is in the attachment.
Please check it and have a nice day.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
In the current state, the manuscript is not holistic enough to make a case for a new cutter system. The manuscript requires significant work before it can be considered for publication. Following is a set of comments those will help the authors in formulating their work for acceptance.
General Comments:
1. The manuscript presented statics and dynamics experiment of a new cutter system integrated with TBM. However, it didn’t specify the design criteria of the proposed cutter system for which performance experiment is presented. The manuscript is not complete without stating the design criteria, and how this proposed cutterhead is different from the traditional cutterhead and how this cutter system will avoid or reduce failures.
2. Cutterhead heavily impacts the rate of penetration, rate of machine utilization, and daily advance rate. It is not clear from the manuscript whether these parameters were considered in designing the proposed cutter head. These parameters need to be considered in calculating stress from the proposed TBM integrated cutter system (Section 2.2 of the manuscript) and in the scaled experiment (Section 2.3, and 2.4 of the manuscript).
3. The design of the cutterhead impacts the efficiency of cutting, the balance of the head, the life of the cutters, the maintenance of the main bearing/gearbox, and the effectiveness of the mucking along with its effects on the wear of the face and gage cutters/muck buckets. Have you considered these while designing the cutterhead proposed in this manuscript?
4. All figures need to have a better resolution.
Specific Comments:
1. Section 2.2: This section requires significant improvement. Several questions need to answer such as which finite element packages has been used, modelling details, parameters selection, geometry of the model, etc. Without these details this section is ambiguous. In addition, can you present a comparison of maximum stress observed at the apex of the shift fork with existing and/or traditional cutter system?
2. Section 3.3.2: The vibration characteristics of TBM new cutter system need to be studied in conjunction with cutterhead balance. Vibration and balance both are dependent on cutterhead lacing and to the lacing pattern, however this section has no mention of it. If these were considered, then please state, and elaborate on them. A well balanced cutterhead lacing can minimize problems (such as dissimilar rock types at the face, joints, and fallouts; different wear patterns on the disks; and the accumulation of muck at the invert) and provide better chances of survival for the main bearing as well as improved cutter life.
3. Please calculate and present eccentric forces considering the ideal and best cutter system design is when the magnitude of eccentric forces are zero or close to zero.
4. A significant amount of work is required in the Conclusion section. In its current form it doesn’t read like a Conclusion. It read more like an Abstract.
5. Please provide a figure showing cutter system profile, and cutter distribution of the proposed cutter system.
6. The selection of the number, size, and allocation of the muck buckets is an integral part of the cutterhead design. Have you considered the muck buckets while designing the cutter system?
Author Response
Thank you for your helpful comments. Our point-by-point response is in the attachment.
Please check it and have a nice day.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for the response to the comments from the reviewer. I checked all comments and suggestions have been appropriately addressed in the revised version of the manuscript. There is no more comment on the paper.
Author Response
Thank you for your kindly comments.
Please find our responses in the attachment.
Thank you for all your hard work.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have attempted to address our comments to the best of their ability. This is satisfactory.
Different paragraphs of the text are edited to different standards. Perhaps various authors contributed different sections. The paper would benefit from some editing by the most competent English-language writer among the authors.
Author Response
Thank you for your kindly comments.
Please find our responses in the attachment.
Thank you for all your hard work.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
