The Effect of Scaling Building Configuration Blast Experiments on Positive Phase Blast Wave Parameters

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1.      There are a lot of writing and formatting errors in the manuscript, especially the format of the references and the marking of the references in the article. 

2.      The resolution of figures is too low to clearly identify the picture content.

3.      In line 148, the frequency bandwidth of the pressure sensor affects the accuracy of the overpressure peak. How to avoid this problem when selecting the sensor?

4.      In line 277, with wave decayed and time progressed, pressure noise increases. How to overcome this problem to ensure the accuracy of data?

5.      There are few references for the experimental module, please add corresponding references. (Such as the selection of pressure sensor in the blasting experiment; Introduction of experimental methods, etc.)

need to be improved 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Although, generally, there is quite sizeable difference between laboratory scale experiments and the real-life scale, your experiments and setups, combined with the scenarios you described very well and in a reproducible fashion that were correlated with computer simulations, gave you a complex image of how a blast would propagate and what its impact may look like in a crowded environment. As you noted in the Conclusions, with further testing and added modifications to the laboratory setup, you can take into account more variables that will help arhitects and constructors to design and erect better buildings.

   

 

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your kind comments.  The greater aim for this research is to address blast injuries and consequences on community (including structures) due to explosive loads. We plan to progressively add complexities and build on the current set-up in hopes that we can address this aim, with reasonable confidence, despite tests being conducted at a laboratory scale. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Editor

 

Thank you for inviting me to evaluate the manuscript entitled " The effect of scaling building configuration blast experiments on positive phase blast wave parameters " (applsci-2358254).

 

The article investigates the loading effects caused by the blast interaction with structures to adjust current protection requirements and disaster preparedness guidelines. The study was done through theoretical analysis, simulation and test, is proposed. Although the topic is an interesting one, the presentation of this paper is not up to the international journal standard. As per the knowledge of this reviewer following points has to be taken care of:

 

1. In the abstract, some sentences don’t hold any meaning. They should be corrected.

 

2. Introduction : you should put more details about your study and explain your objective clearly. However, the manuscript fails to mention/acknowledge them. Please expand the introduction section to reflect the previous contributions.

 

3. Some equation, you don’t give explanation.

 

4. The necessary plan and sections are not provided which is very important for this paper.

 

5. The quality of the figures is not up to the mark and requires modification.

 

6. Conclusions should be brief and concise. All findings should be elaborated on and included in the Results and Discussions section. Only key findings should be there in the conclusions. This manuscript lacks the section of “Conclusions”.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Dear Editor

 

Thank you for inviting me to evaluate the manuscript entitled " The effect of scaling building configuration blast experiments on positive phase blast wave parameters " (applsci-2358254).

 

The article investigates the loading effects caused by the blast interaction with structures to adjust current protection requirements and disaster preparedness guidelines. The study was done through theoretical analysis, simulation and test, is proposed. Although the topic is an interesting one, the presentation of this paper is not up to the international journal standard. As per the knowledge of this reviewer following points has to be taken care of:

 

1. In the abstract, some sentences don’t hold any meaning. They should be corrected.

 

2. Introduction : you should put more details about your study and explain your objective clearly. However, the manuscript fails to mention/acknowledge them. Please expand the introduction section to reflect the previous contributions.

 

3. Some equation, you don’t give explanation.

 

4. The necessary plan and sections are not provided which is very important for this paper.

 

5. The quality of the figures is not up to the mark and requires modification.

 

6. Conclusions should be brief and concise. All findings should be elaborated on and included in the Results and Discussions section. Only key findings should be there in the conclusions. This manuscript lacks the section of “Conclusions”.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

 

The paper by Sherlyn et al. "The effect of scaling building configuration blast experiments on positive phase blast wave parameters" presents novel and interesting results that deserve to be published after minor improvements:

1. Consider improving the quality of Figures 4, 7, 8, and 5.

2. Authors need to highlight the main achievements from their research and application in the conclusion section, which are unique to this study.

3. The titles of references have a different format. The title of the article is written in capital letters at the beginning of words, others only in lowercase. Also, the standardized format of the presentation is in the journal's name. Because names have been written in different formats, one is not abbreviated, and the others are not.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

This abstract describes a study aimed at understanding the effects of blast wave interaction with structures in urban settings. The study used reduced-scale laboratory experiments to determine the scaling effects on blast wave parameters. The experiments involved detonating cuboidal PE-4 charges and measuring the pressure at various positions around a small-scale building. The study found that inter-scaling between the 75% and 100% scales worked well for positions shielded by the corner of the wall.

This article provides a clear presentation of the research conducted to study the interaction of blast waves with structures in urban settings. Sufficient modeling work and experiments were conducted to support the findings. However, the resolution of the plots is low, which makes it difficult to read the legend. Additionally, the authors did not discuss the potential applications of this modeling work or the significance of the building used in the experiments.

Regarding the modeling work, the boundary conditions for the building were not clearly stated, which makes it difficult to understand the purpose of adding the building to the experiment. Furthermore, there are some tables that show a large variance in the difference between the modeling work and experiment results, which raises questions about the applicability of the model in real-life scenarios.

Overall, the article is well-structured and presents a systematic study of the mechanisms of blast wave interaction with structures in urban settings. However, the authors need to address the issues raised above to demonstrate the scientific significance of their work. Therefore, I recommend accepting this article after minor revisions.

Here's some detailed comment:

1. All the figures have low resolution, it's difficult to read the picture and the legend, please switch with a higher resolution version.

2. Line 166, could you explain why you applied different pressure sensor at different locations?

3. Line 116, why pressure and velocity don't change?

4. Line 238, could you explain the reason for the boundary condition setting? did you apple transmissive BC on the building block too, would this be representative of the scenario in reality?

The overall presentation of the English language in the text is clear. However, there are some instances where the language can be made more precise and less redundant. For instance, the description of the study could be expressed in a more concise and exact manner.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I am ok with the revised version. 

I am ok with the revised version.