Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article seems to be interesting and innovative in terms of the materials used and the research conducted. However, there are a few things that could be improved:

1. No references listed or cited in the text and below the figures. According to the journal's requirements: ''In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [] and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. For embedded citations in the text with pagination, use both parentheses and brackets to indicate the reference number and page numbers; for example [5] (p. 10), or [6] (pp. 101–105).'' References also require editorial corrections.

2. The Introduction to the article lacks a literature review of similar studies and their results. Only in the Discussion do references to other studies appear. It would be a good idea to add this information in the introduction as well.

3. There is no scientific response to the obtained results. The authors performed a number of interesting tests on various materials, but it would be worth referring to the results obtained in more detail, describing the impact of the added substances, how and why, in order to improve the quality of the manuscript.

4. It would also be worth adding information about the potential uses of the designed mixtures.

5. Some of the charts lack the axis markings, of course there is information under the drawings, but for a clearer reading it would be worth supplementing it.

Author Response

Dead reviewer,

thank you very much for your review and valuable recommendations and comments provided.

1. References should be correct. It was a small glitch with reference style.
2. We did move that information to the Introduction and extended the current literature there.
3. Discussion is now more oriented this way.
4. We tried to add some information in the Discussion.
5. It should be clear now.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article’s purpose is clear and brings some new technological knowledge. The authors examine a series of asphalt mixtures with reclaimed asphalt added with two different recycled additives and jute fibers varying in length and preparation method. In the light of standard tests, they try to select the optimal mixture and explain the differences in the properties from a technical point of view. The environmental aspect of the issue is also visible.

 

The reviewer has the following comments that should be taken into account when re-editing the article:

 

1) Due to an editorial error, there are no numbered references to the cited literature in the article’s text, which makes it impossible to verify the authors' achievements against the achievements of other researchers.

2) The articles of other researchers on testing asphalt mixtures with jute fibers need to be cited more, and your results should be compared with them.

3) Unit costs of producing the proposed mixed asphalt materials should be compared. It is an important practical aspect.

Author Response

Dead reviewer,

thank you very much for your review and valuable recommendations and comments provided.

1. References should be correct. It was a small glitch with reference style.
2. We did move references from Discussion to Introduction and even did expand this with more literature.
3. We added estimated costs of additives to Discussion.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

As the authors state, bitumen mixtures are vastly the most popular paving materials and their lifespan is limited, there is a constant availability of old asphalt pavements or reclaimed asphalt (RA).

Air voids content, moisture and freeze-thaw susceptibility, stiffness modulus (IT-CY), resistance to crack propagation and dynamic modulus tests were conducted. Addition of recycling agents led to a lower stiffness. A lower ITSR, increased stiffness and best crack propagation results were recorded in some mixtures with fibres and recycling agent.

The addition of rejuvenator and/or jute fibres (virgin and NaOH-treated fibres) have a positive influence on the compactability of the asphalt mixture with 30 % RA content. The addition of recycling agents tends to decrease the stiffness modulus while the addition of jute fibres tends to increase it. Similarly, to the stiffness modulus, the addition of the virgin jute fibres has showed higher dynamic values.

The presented article brings significant findings and measured values for further research, and I recommend publishing it in a journal.

Author Response

Dead reviewer,

thank you very much for your review and valuable recommendations and comments provided.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript investigated the performance of asphalt concrete with reclaimed asphalt, rejunvenating agent and surface treated jute fibers. The results are sound and interesting, however, the manuscript still needs a lot of effort of revising and polishing for English writing and to add some more profound discussion of the results. In addition, it seems something is wrong with the reference citation throughout the manuscript, which needs to be fixed. Please see the detailed comments below.

 

Line 13: Is it "recycling agents" or "rejuvenating agent"? It shows rejuvenator in the conclusion. Please be consistent with the terms throughout the manuscript.

Line 19: Please specify this abbreviation for clarification.

Line 20: Please be specific about the best results by giving the results and findings.

Line 28: It should be "whose" instead of "which the".

Line 29: It should be promotion instead of promote.

Line 34-35: Please have at least one reference for supporting your statement.

Line 35-36: There is some grammar mistake in this sentence and please correct it.

Line 40: What does EAPA stand for? Please specify this abbreviation.

Line 46-48: Please have the reference for your data and statement.

Line 59-61: Please correct the grammar mistake in this sentence.

Line 62-65: Please have at least one reference for your statement.

Line 69: Please add "to mitigate" in this sentence before "the moisture damage".

Line 69-70: Please specify the exact solution in this sentence.

Line 70-72: Please have a reference for your statement.

Line 87-89: Please rephrase this sentence and correct the grammar mistakes.

Line 90: Please be specific about the limitation of this combination.

Line 112-116: The calculation sentence is very confusing and please rephrase it.

Line 120-123: These sentences are redundant and shall be deleted.

Line 162: What does by weigtht mean? The weight of what? What are long fibers? Should not they be jute fibers with a shorter length?

Line 184: What are gap values? The terminology is somehow not very professional.

Line 191: What is the reason of this limit set for?

Line 193: What does interstices mean?

Line 214-215: Please rephrase this sentence.

Line 230-232: Please have at least one reference for supporting your statement.

Line 321: Please specify the temperature range of medium and high region.

Line 358: Please have a reference for your statement.

Line 359-360: Please have a reference for your statement.

Line 360-361: Please rephrase this sentence and correct the grammar mistakes.

Line 373: Please rephrase this sentence.

Line 352-384: The discussion section mainly discussed the effect of adding jute fibers in asphalt concrete on its performance and merely no discussion on the influence of rejuvenating agent and the reclaimed asphalt. In addition, the discussion is superficial, which just reported the results and findings in previous studies and lacked the comparison and hypothesis and explanations. Please add some more profound content in this section.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English writing of the manuscript is not very fluent and easy to read and it still needs a lot of polishing work. In addition, there are some grammar mistakes and misuse of professional terms in the manuscript.

Author Response

Dead reviewer,

thank you very much for your review and valuable recommendations and comments provided.

Line 13: The correct term is “recycling agents”. Other terms were corrected.

Line 19: Done.

Line 20: We tried to explain results more.

Line 28: Corrected.

Line 29: Corrected.

Line 34-35: There are already two references in the sentence (roads [1] and 90 % of Europe roads [2] are).

Line 35-36: Sentence rephrased and merged.

Line 40: Done.

Line 46-48: There are two references already (applications [2]. In the previous year, the data from EAPA have shown that 28 % of the available RA are dumped in landfills and thus the use of these materials is growing gradually year-by-year [3].).

Line 59-61: Corrected.

Line 62-65: There are two references (in HMA [8; 9]).

Line 69:  Done.

Line 69-70: We tried to be more specific.

Line 70-72: There are two references already (bituminous binder properties [12; 8]).

Line 87-89: We rephrased it..

Line 90: We tried to be more specific.

Line 112-116: It is rephrased now.

Line 120-123: We agree and deleted them.

Line 162: “by weight” means by weight of the total mixture. The used fibres length in the paper is 20 mm except the sample “0.2% J300 10mm” which is with 10 mm fibres. The purpose was to study the influence of the length in various mechanical properties.

Line 184: It indeed is. We changed some words.

Line 191: This standard sets requirements for the preparation, implementation and compliance control of compacted asphalt layers. It follows on from valid European standards for asphalt mixtures, materials and products related to the construction of asphalt compacted layers.

Line 193: Inner spaces, but we rephrased that.

Line 214-215: Done.

Line 230-232: Done.

Line 321: Done.

Line 358: Done.

Line 359-360: Done.

Line 360-361: Done.

Line 373: We rephrased it.

Line 352-384: Agree, it is different now. References about fibres were moved to the Introduction.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The reviewer's comments are well adressed. I accept the article. During the final editting process, please put in the text references to positions [30] and [31] from the list of the cited literature. Now, I can not find them in the page no. 4 or 5. The text and style of the list of references need also minor editing. 

You wrote in the author response to my report "Dead reviewer ...". I hope you meant "Dear reviewer ...". I forgive you ;) 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

I am sorry for the mistake in greetings. Wish you a good luck and health!

Yes, the references did not refresh correctly. Apparently, I had to accept the changes in removed text and then it seems to be fine.

 

Best regards

Peter Gallo

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

All the review comments are well addressed and the manuscript is ready for acception.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

 

thank you for the response and I am sorry for a mistake in the last greeting. Wish you a good luck and health!

 

Kind regards

Peter Gallo