Isothermal Drying Process and its Effect on Compressive Strength of Concrete in Multiscale
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In line 60, it is recommended to change the word “experiment” to “experimental”.
In line 68 it is said that "aggregates meet the requirements of national specification". It is neccesary to reference this standard.
Please review the text "After taken out the curing laboratory, ..." in line 87.
In line 89, change “… the half specimens …” to “… half of the samples…”
In line 98, it is recommended to write the symbols “ωt” and “Sr” using italics or parentheses. In addition, it is necessary to use subscripts in these symbols so that their writing is the same in the text and in the equations.
In line 99, it is recommended to change the end of the sentence as follows: “... can be calculated according to equations (1) and (2).”
In line 109, it is recommended to change the end of the sentence as follows: “... was calculated as shown in equation (3).”
In line 111, it is recommended to change the text as follows: “… represent the initial length an the length at time t in the measuring point i during te drying process.”
In lines 137 and 138 it is recommended to change the unit “kg/(hm2)” to “kg/m2h”.
In line 143 it is recommended to introduce the text, “… , shown in figure 3, ..” after the existing comma.
In line 144, it is recommended to change the word “within” to “inside”.
Please check the text for the sentence that begins in line 144 and ends in line 146, for ease of understanding.
In Figure 3 it is recommended to further enlarge the zoom scale in order to locate the peak time, as well as to generate two figures: 3A and 3B.
In setion 3.2 it would have been interesting to see the stress-strain curves in both cases: shear and splitting failure modes, associated to the microcracks evolution , and not just the strength value.
It is recommended to use italics and subscript to write the symbols Sr that appear in the paragraph that begins in line 177.
Author Response
It is very excited and honored to receive an opportunity to revise our manuscript again. We thank you very much for your constructive comments and efforts on our manuscript entitled “Isothermal drying process and its effect on compressive strength of concrete in multiscale”. (ID: applsci-584931)
We have studied the comments from you carefully and have made modifications which we hope meet with your approval. Revised portions are marked in red in the revised manuscript. The main modifications in the paper and the responds to your comments are as following.
The detailed response to your comment has been uploaded as an attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.doc
Reviewer 2 Report
In the paper are reported experimental compressive tests on concrete in order to study the effect of isothermal drying process on its compressive strength.
The paper is not well organized, detail about tests setup and method are missing or not included in the appropriate section of the paper.
Several results are presented without the reference to the specimen used for the test. This make difficult to read the paper.
Some conclusions are not supported by accurate analysis of the results, but by other literature results. This may be ok, but the paper should have been organized differently.
Remarks
1) Line 122 "When the dried specimens were cooled to room temperature, the compressive strengths of the saturated and dry specimens of the same mixture were simultaneously measured, with the loading speed of 0.3 Mpa/s."
This sentence is not clear. it means that compressive tests were performed with loading rate of 0.3 MPa/s?
What about the data acquisition during the test for deformation calculation and compressive strenght definition? Provide information in the text.
2) Line 123 Please use MPa instead of Mpa
3) Line 130 What means "Take w/c=0.41 as an example"
w and c have not been defined before.
4) Line 141 Please fix Table 5
5) Line 148 please delete comma
6) What about other w/c ratio? Introduce more figure or comments.
Why this value has been assumed as example? Please provide explanations in the text.
7) Is the water/cement ratio the w/c ratio introduced before?
8) Figure 5 Please reports details of the specimens. Please provide also a global view of the Failed specimen.
9) Line 170 Please specify in the text if this occurs for different values of w/c or not.
10) Line 188 The drying effect on the deformation of specimen is significant and it differs at three scales.
11) Microstructural analysis are were not introduced in Materials and methods section
12) Section 3.4.1
-Please use TGA or TG.
- Please report the meaning of the TG/TGA -Please add and explain the if the results are valid also for the other values of w/c.
13) Line 218 "and is likely attributable to the evolution
of deformation and compressive behavior of concrete at three scales"
Please support this conclusion
14) line 221 Please explain the maning of MIP
15) Line 239 What about other values of w/c? Please introduce comments in the paper.
16) Line 243 Please report details of the specimen used for the extraction of the sample for SEM analysis.
17) Line 266 "The densified microstructure of paste is beneficial
to strength, while the weakened bonding between aggregate and paste is harmful to strength.
Whether the compressive strength increases or decreases after drying depends on the relationship between these two opposite effects."
- Before to generalize this conclusion more experimental analysis must be performed or support in literature must be cited.
18) Figure 10 is not cited in the text.
Author Response
It is very excited and honored to receive an opportunity to revise our manuscript again. We thank you very much for your constructive comments and efforts on our manuscript entitled “Isothermal drying process and its effect on compressive strength of concrete in multiscale”. (ID: applsci-584931)
We have studied the comments from you carefully and have made modifications which we hope meet with your approval. Revised portions are marked in red in the revised manuscript. The main modifications in the paper and the responds to your comments are as following.
The detailed response to your comment has been uploaded as an attachment. We hope that the corrections will meet with approval.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and efforts.
Yours sincerely
Xiangqin DU
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I will thank the author for the paper review.
