Effects of Hooked-End Steel Fiber Geometry and Volume Fraction on the Flexural Behavior of Concrete Pedestrian Decks

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a good paper, however it needs following major revisions:

1. Paper should include some information about bond characteristics, creep and shrinkage, flexural toughness, relationship between deflection and crack mouth opening displacement and some available full-scale tests in the introduction and discussion sections. I recommend to including major findings from following references:

Flexural toughness characteristics of self-compacting concrete incorporating steel and polypropylene fibers. Australian Journal of Structural Engineering, 15(3), 269-286.

2. For the numerical section, I recommend to check available models for stress-strain relationships in following reference and include them in the analysis to select the best relationship.

Performance-based  design  of  self-compacting  fibre  reinforced  concrete,  PhD  Thesis, TU Delft, Netherlands.

Stress-strain relationships for steel fibre reinforced self-compacting concrete. Structural Engineering and Mechanics, 46(2), 295-322.

3. Have authors captured compressive stress-strain curves for compressive strengths? It can add more if these curves can be presented.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is sufficiently novel and interesting to warrant publication and it adheres to the journal's standards. The article is clearly laid out. All the key elements are present: abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion and conclusions. The title clearly describes the article and the abstract reflects the content of the article. The introduction contains a brief description of the actual state-of-the-art, and clearly state the problem being investigated. The authors accurately explain what they discovered in the research. The claims in conclusion are supported by the results. The references are accurate. The reviewer recommends accepting the paper for publication.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see my comments

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors revised the paper properly and it can be accepted. 

Reviewer 3 Report

there maybe a typo and grammar error here?

“Banthia and Nandakumar [34] reported that the fibers enhances the resistance to nuc"leation and growth of cracks in concrete, based on fundamental fracture tests

Based on the answer to this comment, "L509-512: ....." reviewer suggests adding it as future research.  Other than that, the discussion for this part is enough. However, it would be nice if there was a suggestion or two regarding the model that may lead to better models.