Identification of Impact Frequency for Down-the-Hole Drills Using Motor Current Signature Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper "Identification of Impact Frequency for Down-the-Hole Drills Using Motor Current Signature Analysis" presents interesting contributions in order to monitor the drilling condition and characterize the rock mass.

I appreciate that the paper could be published in "Applied Sciences" after some improvements have been made, such as:

- completion of figure 1 with common elements of the measurement system;

- adopting different images for figure 2 b and c, given that they are identical to those in the work [7], or making bibliographic references to it;

- completing the list of bibliographic references in such a way as to support the statement that "however, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that applies such methods to impact frequency identification"

Thank you

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The present manuscript describes novel applications of signal processing methods for the identification of impact frequency, from the MCSA during percussive drilling operations. The resulting impact frequency for the three methods analyzed were consistent with values obtained from pressure and sound signal analysis during both the no percussive drilling and the stable percussive drilling, demonstrating experimentally the validity of the proposed methods. A manuscript has a practical application and also provides important theoretical for the next studies. The manuscript can be accepted for publication after providing the corrections mentioned below.

 

Point 1. Keywords need to be modified. Provide several more.

 

Point 2. In the Introduction section, an enhanced literature review is required. For this study, the authors have used only 13 references sources. It seems insufficient for such type of research. It will be great if the authors show some description in context why it is important to conduct this study?

 

Point 3. Where can the expected result be used or implemented?

 

Point 4. What are limitations of the study?

 

Point 5. The tasks of the research must be highlighted at the end of the Introduction section.

 

Point 6. Please consider the suggested research in your paper when enhancing the literature review. I believe they are worth considering in your paper.

Ma, Y., & Xu, Y. (2022). Research into technology for precision directional drilling of gas-drainage boreholes. Mining of Mineral Deposits, 16(2), 27-32. https://doi.org/10.33271/mining16.02.027

Bazaluk, O., Velychkovych, A., Ropyak, L., Pashechko, M., Pryhorovska, T., & Lozynskyi, V. (2021). Influence of Heavy Weight Drill Pipe Material and Drill Bit Manufacturing Errors on Stress State of Steel Blades. Energies, 14(14), 4198. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14144198

 

Point 7. Subsections 2.3-2.5 present many figures. Are they a result of the measures? If yes, why do not present it in the section Results?

 

Point 8. In the Discussion section authors need to compare obtained results with obtained results of other researchers.

 

Point 9. Please provide a short description of further research in the Discussion section.

 

Point 10. In the Conclusions authors indicate: “This work proposed novel applications of signal processing methods for the identification of impact frequency, from the MCSA during percussive drilling operations”, but what is the exact novelty of the study?

 

 

Point 11. In general, I must admit that a very good study was performed, and I will recommend your paper for publication after careful revision.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

1. The paper is interesting, although some statements are obvious to specialists in the field of mining and drilling machines, e.g. on page 1 („Introduction”):

- what is drilling (first paragraph),

- definition of impact frequency, etc.

2. The authors of the paper consider the working unit of a percussion DTH drilling rig with a pneumatic hammer. The rotary mechanism is equipped with an electric motor. The question arises where such a solution is used (the electric rotary drive of the drill string). To my knowledge, drill rigs used to drill blast holes in opencast mining are equipped with a hydraulic or pneumatic drive to rotate the drill string (see, for example, Epiroc rigs). It would be necessary to justify the choice of an electric drive.

3. I believe that chap. 2.5 is unnecessary, because a more obvious source of information about the impact frequency is the course of the hammer pressure. So why duplicate this information, especially since, as the authors themselves write, a measuring and recording system was used, which filtered the signal components in the band of interest (<20 Hz). The authors should consider resigning from this fragment because it does not bring anything new.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

I am satisfied with the corrections provided by you.

This study is an important contribution to the research field.

Congratulations to the authors.