Review Reports - Measurement of Water Drop Sizes Generated by a Dripping Rainfall Simulator with Drippers in the Form of Hypodermic Needles

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article simulates the dripping rainfall simulator and provides detailed analysis on hypodermic needle characteristics and the water drop under different water pressures. This is an interesting work and has importance to soil research community. I would recommend this article for publication in this journal after incorporation of the comments:

1) table 1 should only report the data which is important for drawing conclusion. Rest of the data can be moved to supporting information.

2) In section 2.3, did you consider the effect of gravity? Is it a free fall? For that one can use terminal velocity.

3) In the Fig.2, grids should be removed to make things clean. Same is true for other figures.

4) Regression equations in each plot should be moved to supplementary material.to look things clean.

5) results and discussion should be put together, instead of putting them in separate sections

6) Conclusion should be concise and mention only important points, instead of lengthy paragraph

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There is always a scope for further improvement.

Author Response

Dear rewiver, thank you for your effort. All answers to your comments are provided in a word document which we attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript claimed to develop and design a dripping rainfall simulator for laboratory use in soil research. Van Boxel’s numerical model provided estimations of fall velocity for different drop diameters. However, there are some issues that authors need to solve.

1. In the introduction part, the authors did a literature review and summarized the previous works. However, the introduction part should also include what is the inspiration for the proposed work (especially based on the previous works) and should also include a brief summary of the proposed works and results.

2. What was the rationale behind choosing the specific 11 needle sizes used in the study?

3. In the manuscript, how were the drop sizes measured precisely during the test? What instruments or techniques were used?

4. On page 5 and page 9, please add the descriptions of the tables. (eg. Table 1. xxxxxxxx)

5. In Fig. 2, there aren't any (a) or (b) markers in the figure.

6. How do your findings/results relate to real-world rainfall patterns? Are there specific climate regions where your results might be most applicable? Authors need to discuss their finding's influences or further development in this field.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

moderate revision

Author Response

Dear rewiver, thank you for your effort. All answers to your comments are provided in a word document which we attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript designs an experiment to simulate the formation of raindrops. The experiment mainly used syringes and auxiliary equipment to control flow and pressure, etc. In general, the research has certain practical significance. But manuscript writing needs improvement:

1. The literature in the introduction is too old, and the literature of recent three years should be added.

2. The innovativeness of the experiment in the introduction needs to be clearly stated.

3. The representation of numbers in the figures and tables is inconsistent

4. The discussion needs to be more logical, especially the advantages and disadvantages of this test method and the formation of raindrops by high-altitude drops need to be more clearly explained.

Author Response

Dear rewiver, thank you for your effort. All answers to your comments are provided in a word document which we attached.