Influence of Uneven Subgrade Frost Heave on Deformation and Damage of CRTSIII Slab Track
and Qiang Guo 6Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is focused on the application of a damage plastic model for the assessment of frost heave deformation of subgrade of high-speed railway in seasonal freezing area. Three stages of damage evolution has been applied. Special attention was paid to evaluation of selected positions along the length of the slab as well as concrete base. The use of concrete damage plasticity theory was found to be more appropriate than the linear elastic model.
I have the following comments on the content of the article:
1. Line 75: "]" is missing after references to the literature.
2. Verify that Ec is correct in formula (12). Shouldn't there be Et?
3. The wrong font is used in formula (15).
4. A comma is used incorrectly when the word "that" is used. The comma in the sentence should come before this word, not after it.
5. Unify the writing of the unit "MPa" with "Mpa" and the indication of the units in the description of the axes in the graphs (with or without parentheses).
6. In Table 2, the identical description for cases "b-d" in the line "Peak position ..." is apparently wrong.
7. Line 373: wrong number of formula is used. There should be (22) instead of (19).
8. Improve the poorly understood sentence in chapter 4.3
9. With the exception of one entry in the bibliography, all are by Chinese authors. I recommend expanding the list to include works by authors from other countries.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript deals with the important problem of slab track damage. Uneven frost heave is dealt theoretically with a very special subgrade deformation. A more general analysis of the problem should be added.
1. The elastic behaviour should be analysed first.
2. The risk of damage can be attributed to the stresses before damage.
3. The uneven subgrade deformation as input should be analysed for harmonic functions (wavenumber analysis, transfer functions in wavenumber domain).
4. Compare with the methods in [1,2,3].
5. You may find that high wavenumbers are most critical for the stresses (or bending moments).
6. Apply these results to Your problem.
7. Give the wavenumber spectrrum of Your special subgrade deformation.
8. The ends of the deformation seem to be most critical (have the highest wavenumbers).
9. Maybe in this way the results about damage can also be generalised.
[1] H. Hunt: Modelling of rail roughness for the evaluation of vibration-isolation measures. Proc. of ICSV2005, Lisbon, 2005.
[2] H. Hunt, Types of rail roughness and the selection of vibration isolation measures. Proceedings of 9th International Workshop on Railway Noise and Vibration, Munich, Germany, 2007, 341-347.
[3] L. Auersch: Excitation of ground vibration due to the passage of trains over a track with trackbed irregularities and a varying support stiffness. Vehicle System Dynamics 53 (1), 2015, 1-29
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
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Reviewer 3 Report
- correct row 75, zhe bracket ] in references 16-18 is missing
- the equations, for example from row 110 to 131 and others, are in some pdf readers unreadable,
What is the conclusion and design measure to prevent vertical deformations due to frost?
How can you prevent the subsoil from freezing?
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
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Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Review for Manuscript ID applsci-2191322 1st revision
Influence of uneven frost heave of subgrade on deformation and damage of CRTSIII slab track
by Hongge Wang , Hong Xiao *, Xuhao Cui , Shusheng Yang , Mahantesh M Nadakatti , Qiang Guo
The response is accepted. There are the following minor corrections.
1. Carefully check the information given. There are mistakes, for example Figure 12 is referenced as Figure 11.
2. Some information is missing.
3. The length of the FE model.
4. The length of the concrete base areas (and their meaning).
5. The width of the subgrade (embankment)
6. „The subgrade is fixed at its base.“
7. All figure captions should include the position and the wavelength of the frost heave.
8. For example it is not clear why the deformation is not symmetric in Figure 8.
9. Add the following information:
10. The bending stiffness EIL of the base layer.
11. The bending stiffness EIT of the whole track.
12. The stiffness per length kS of the subgrade (calculated by the weight load of the track on the FE model).
13. The critical wavelength lamda0 = 2pi (EI/kS)^0.25 for the base layer and the whole track.
14. Use this parameter for the discussion of Figures 18ff.
15. Check also the following open access article.
L. Auersch, J. Song: Dynamic damage quantification of slab tracks—finite element models on Winkler soil and finite-element boundary-element models on continuous soil. CivilEng 2022, 3, 979–997.
https://doi.org/10.3390/civileng3040055
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
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