New Insights on the Tensile Strength and Fracture Mechanism of c-ZrO₂/α-Al₂O₃ Interfaces

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article presents a insights on the tensile strength and fracture mechanism of c-ZrO2/α-Al2O3 Interface. The paper is well-written and offers valuable insights that could benefit the scientific community. The methodology employed is rigorous, and the article adheres to the journal's standards, though a few minor grammatical errors in sentence structure require correction. However, the paper's literature review appears insufficient. Therefore, I recommend a minor revision before considering it for publication.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors studied the tensile strength and fracture mechanism of c-ZrO₂/α-Al₂O₃ interface. There are several issues that should be addressed before further consideration for publication.

1.    In section 3.2 of the article, what is the purpose of studying the change trend of parallel bond length?

2.      The calculation results of mechanical properties mentioned in the third paragraph of the discussion section have not been mentioned before. It is recommended to write the specific test process and results of mechanical properties in the rest section.

3.      The discussion section lacks the interpretation and analysis of the calculation results. For example, explain why the length of the Al-O bond at the 2O-terminated interface is different, but the two Al-O bonds break at the same time during tensile simulation. It is suggested to add other analysis methods to explain the calculation results.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments

Certainly, massive and remarkable works have been completed by the authors regarding the tensile strength and fracture properties of c-ZrO2(001)/α-Al2O3(11̄02) interface investigated by first-principle tensile simulations. There are certain questions that should be answered. The questions are listed below:

1. Why author choose the ZrO2/Al2O3 as the research objective?

2. Why the O-model is dtronger than the other two models.

3. The author should add the area A in the Figure 2.

4. We cannot see the legends such as (a), (b) and (c) in Figure 3.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx