Optimization of Pile Driver Frame Based on Sensitivity Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. The authors should consider the motivation of their choosing method.

2. The review of the literature should be enhanced by reviewing some recent relevant from the reputable journals such as Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenviromental engineering; Geotechnique; Geotechnical Testing journal; Int'l journal of Geomechanics.

3. In comparisons results of your proposal some important parameters such as modeling of uncertainty, complexity, etc. should be considered and well-describe. Also better if your compare to other researcher.

4. In the conclusions section, the limitations of this study should be highlighted.

5. The future works should be mentioned in conclusion section.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We feel great thanks for your professional review work on our article. As you are concerned, there are several problems that need to be addressed. According to your nice suggestions, we have made extensive corrections to our previous draft. A point by point response to each and every comment put forward is provided as follows：

Point 1: The authors should consider the motivation of their choosing method.

Response 1: We think this is an excellent suggestion.We added a description of the experimental method in lines 285 to 296 of the article and the motivation of choosing this method. We added a description of the optimization method between lines 330 and 339 of the article, and the reasons for choosing the pointer algorithm as the optimization method studied in this article, as described in the attached article.

Point 2:The review of the literature should be enhanced by reviewing some recent relevant from the reputable journals such as Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenviromental engineering; Geotechnique; Geotechnical Testing journal; Int'l journal of Geomechanics.
Response 2: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point. We have checked the literature carefully and added more references in the citation section, please see lines 401 to 451 of the attached article for details. Also we have revised the description of the literature in lines 71 to 83 of the article, please see the highlighted section of the attached article for details.

Point 3:In comparisons results of your proposal some important parameters such as modeling of uncertainty, complexity, etc. should be considered and well-describe. Also better if your compare to other researcher.

Response 3: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point. We have added a description of the impact of parameter uncertainty and modeling complexity on the results of the study in lines 352 through 359 of the article, as detailed in the highlighted labeled section of the article.

Point 4:In the conclusions section, the limitations of this study should be highlighted.
Response 4: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.In response, we added the limitations of the current study in lines 384 to 386 of the article, as detailed in the highlighted labeled section of the article.

Point 5:The future works should be mentioned in conclusion section.

Response 5: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.We have added a description of future research work between lines 386 and 388 of the article, as detailed in the highlighted labeled section of the article.

We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes marked in yellow in revised paper which will not influence the content and framework of the paper. We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope the correction will meet with approval. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Kind regards，

Mr. Yang

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

     We feel great thanks for your professional review work on our article. As you are concerned, there are several problems that need to be addressed. According to your nice suggestions, we have made extensive corrections to our previous draft, the detailed corrections are listed below.：

1. We have added a background introduction to the article in lines 51 to 69 of the article.
2. We have checked the literature carefully and added more references in the citation section, please see lines 401 to 451 of the attached article for details.
3. We added a description of the experimental method in lines 285 to 296 of the article, and added a description of the optimization method between lines 330 and 339 of the article, and the reasons for choosing the pointer algorithm as the optimization method studied in this article, as described in the attached article.
4. To explain the results of this study more clearly，we have added a graph of the change history of the values of all variables during the optimization process in line 346 of the article.
5. To make the results more supportive of the conclusions，we have added a before-and-after comparison of the optimization of the structural mass of the large body in Table 6 in rows 351 to 352, as well as a description of this result in rows 367 to 369, as detailed in the attached article.
6. We have optimized the English presentation of the article in the following places:Lines 36 to 38, 131 to 132, 136 to 139, 319 to 220, 257 to 259, 356 to 359, and 365 of the article, see the attached article markup section for details.

We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes marked in yellow in revised paper which will not influence the content and framework of the paper. We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope the correction will meet with approval. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Kind regards，

Mr. Yang

Reviewer 3 Report

The article is devoted to the optimization of pile driving frame based on sensitivity analysis. Its value would be higher if the following disadvantages were eliminated:1) check (p.15) quality or quantity? 2) FEM -finite element method -do not duplicate method (p96 and etc), use it all the time in the text FEM 3) "finite element model" doesn't sound good(105) 4) Table 1 (add units in parameter column, don't use (*)as dimension)  5) incomprehensible Fig. 2, better to use a mesh image 6) Show what boundary conditions were used in the modelling 7) An informative picture with explanations is needed to understand the actions (130-136) 8) use italic font for functions in the text 9) Explain Ri (units) already after Figure 4,10)Instead of the index "e", use integer type "i" 11) Explain what "design parameters" are(185) 12)Check the usage of "k" and "K" (192, 193). If everything is correct, how are they different? 13)I don't understand why the pictures of Fig. 7 a-c are needed. 14) Not understood 295-300. Where the values are taken from?

Without knowing a more specific system of assumptions and limitations, it is difficult to establish the correspondence of the research to reality.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

     We feel great thanks for your professional review work on our article. As you are concerned, there are several problems that need to be addressed. According to your nice suggestions, we have made extensive corrections to our previous draft, please refer to the attached document for specific corrections and explanations.A point by point response to each and every comment put forward is provided as follows(Note that the highlighted part is the modified content) :

Point 1:check (p.15) quality or quantity? .

Response 1: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.Here, it should be the value of mass, so it is replaced here with mass. See line 18 of the attached article for details.

Point 2: FEM -finite element method -do not duplicate method (p96 and etc), use it all the time in the text FEM

Response 2: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.For this reason I added the following in line 104: Finite element model (FEM), and changed "the FEM method" in line 113 to "the finite element method".

Point 3:"finite element model" doesn't sound good(105)

Response 3: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.In line 117 of the article, the following change was made: ："finite element model"was replaced with"model constructed based on finite element analysis method".

Point 4:Table 1 (add units in parameter column, don't use (*)as dimension) 

Response 4: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.Here the (*) has been replaced with the mathematical symbol (x).

Point 5:incomprehensible Fig. 2, better to use a mesh image

Response 5: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.The article modifies the original figure into a clearer local grid diagram in line 141 and explains the grid division in lines 136 to 140, see the highlighted section in the specific lines of the article for details.

Point 6:Show what boundary conditions were used in the modelling

Response 6: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.In response I added the picture of the model with boundary constraints in line 197 of the article and added a detailed description of the boundary conditions between line 187 and line 196.

Point 7:An informative picture with explanations is needed to understand the actions (130-136)

Response 7: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.I have added the image with explanatory information and highlighted it on line 152 of the article, see attached article.

Point 8: use italic font for functions in the text

Response 8: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.The font form of the formulae in the article from line 220 to line 253 have been changed to italic and highlighted, as shown in the attached article.

Point 9:Explain Ri (units) already after Figure 4

Response 9: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.We have added an explanation of the variable Ri with highlighting in lines 183 to 186 of the article, as described in the attached article.

Point 10:Instead of the index "e", use integer type "i"

Response 10: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.We have replaced "e" with integer type "i" in lines 235 to 252 of the article and highlighted it, see the attached article for details.

Point 11:Explain what "design parameters" are

Response 11: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.We have added an explanation of "design parameters" in lines 214 to 217 of the article：" The design variables in this paper are the thicknesses of each plate among the large body structure mentioned above. Changes in the design variables cause changes in the product performance values, such as the mass, strength, and stiffness of the structure."，see the attached article for details.

Point 12:Check the usage of "k" and "K" (192, 193). If everything is correct, how are they different?

Response 12: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.The article replaces "k" with "K" in all equations from line 220 to line 253, see the attached article for details.

Point 13:I don't understand why the pictures of Fig. 7 a-c are needed.

Response 13: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.Figure 7 in the original article was designed to show the actual process of using the software to solve the optimization model and the calculation process. In order to show the calculation process and results more clearly, we have modified the original Figure 7 into the current Figure 9, which shows the values of all variables during the operation, with highlighting, as shown in lines 346 to 347 of the attached article.

Point 14:Not understood 295-300. Where the values are taken from?

Response 14: We appreciate the reviewer for raising this important point.We have added Figure 9 in the article to show the data source of the optimized maximum displacement and maximum stress values, please see Figure 9(g) and Figure 9(h) in the attached article for details.

In order to better respond to the valuable comments made by the reviewers, in addition to the changes mentioned above, the following changes have been made:

1. We have added a background introduction to the article in lines 51 to 69 of the article.We have checked the literature carefully and added more referencesin the citation section, please see lines 401 to 451 of the attached article for details.
2. We added a description of the experimental method in lines 285 to 296 of the article, and added a description of the optimization method between lines 330 and 339 of the article, and the reasons for choosing the pointer algorithm as the optimization method studied in this article, as described in the attached article.
3. We have added a graph of the change history of the values of all variables during the optimization process in line 346 of the article.

      4.We have added a before-and-after comparison of the optimization of the structural mass of the large body in Table 6 in rows 351 to 352, as well as a description of this result in rows 367 to 369, as detailed in the attached article.

We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes marked in yellow in revised paper which will not influence the content and framework of the paper. We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope the correction will meet with approval. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Kind regards，

Mr. Yang

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Now, the paper can be accepted.