Atomization Characteristics of a Hollow Cone Nozzle for Air-Assisted Variable-Rate Spraying
, Kechuan Yi 2, Hanjie Dou 1,3, Si Li 1,3, Shuo Yang 1,3, Wei Zou 1,3 and Changyuan Zhai 1,3,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1 Since experiments were conducted in your lab, it is not good to use “in orchards” in the title. The title should be rewritten.
2 Line 278 It is not clear what is “the non-dimensional parameter droplet spectrum”. Please define it here.
3 Line 459 Is it “with the increase in the Y value“?
4 Line 470 also “with an increasing Y value”?
5 In the Discussion section, the author just made the self-statement. You should cite some references to support your ideas.
6 In the Discussion section, the author should take into consideration other factors that affect the droplets. For example, the vaporization of droplets when they were falling toward the ground
Generally, the past tense should be used rather than the present tense in this paper.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors designed a variable spraying control system test bench to study the changes of droplet size, relative span of droplet spectrum and droplet velocity in space during the operation of air-assisted variable spraying in orchards, aiming at the variation of droplet atomization characteristics in space affecting the droplet deposition characteristics in target area and non-target area. It provides a reference for the variation of droplet atomization characteristics at different spray pressure conditions, which is conducive to the effective use of pesticides and reducing environmental pollution. Here are some comments and suggestions:
1.In the article abstract line 16-17, what the X value represents should be clearly expressed.
2. The hardware annotation methods in Figure 1 and Figure 2 are not uniform, digital annotation or text annotation should be selected uniformly.
3. In line 231 of the article, please confirm whether it is appropriate to use ' a single nozzle flow ' as an attribute before ' pulse width modulation (PWM) '.
4. In line 469-470 of the paper, the change of droplet characteristics on the same horizontal height plane as the nozzle is studied. However, the ' nozzle ' is a hardware with a volume size, not a point, and the expression is not accurate.
5. In line 23-24 of the paper, ' At X =1.8 m, the relative span of the droplet spectrum is 1.2, and the droplet spectrum is wider '. The use of the word ' wider ' is not accurate and there is no comparison.
6. In line 148-173 of the paper, The hardware description is not standardized and needs further processing.
7. In line 471 of the paper, ' Under the condition of a single pressure (1MPa) ' , confirm whether the description of this sentence is accurate.
8. In the paper, ' the median diameter of the droplet volume ' and ' the relative span of the droplet spectrum ' change to abbreviations for expression.
9. The language of the paper needs to be carefully examined and modified. For example, line 71-73. 'on the atomization characteristics of droplets aimed to minimize the risk of the drift of droplets during air delivery and to cause the blade surface to adhere to the most reasonable droplet characteristics under the premise of satisfying the detachment effect '; Line 148-150 ' the computer is the HP DESKTOP-B0FOTJI notebook computer; the frequency converter is the Xinshengda frequency converter '.
10. Figure 1-Figure 3 after the description paragraph, Figure 4-Figure 9 in the middle of the description paragraph, it is suggested to adjust the order.
11. The title of the paper is not accurate for the experimental study. Please further confirm the title of the paper.
12. The overall English description of the manuscript needs to be improved. It is suggested to find a native English speaker to improve the English expression.
None.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
See the attached file
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Minor editing of English language required
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
No new comments for this revised manuscript.
Author Response
Thank the reviewers for their previous guidance to our paper. Your early guidance made our paper more brilliant.
Reviewer 3 Report
General observations
The second submission of the manuscript in my opinion may be published after correcting some minor errors.
As I said in my first review, apply the SI writing rules correctly, leaving a space between value and unit. All legends of Fig. 4-9 (0.6 MPa, 0.7 MPa, …., 0.4 m, 0.6 m, ….) have not been corrected.
In Table 1 correct power unit KW as kW (4 occurrences). In addition, the measuring range of the anemometer is 26-10000 fpm: What does the acronym “fpm” mean? I expect a measurement range in m/s.
L314: correct spray pressure symbol “p” as “P” (upper case).
L316-323: You may simplify the manuscript by reporting that data were analyzed applying the stepwise regression with the backward elimination approach, by adopting the F-test with significance p-level = 0.01 as criterion.
Eq. (2): Add a clarification sentence as for equations 3 and 4, specifying the unit of quantities involved. As an example:
where Dv0.5 (mm) is the volume mean diameter; X (m) is the longitudinal distance; Y (m) is the transverse distance; and P (MPa) is the spray pressure.
Eq. (3) and Eq. (4): add unit (see above)
L389-390 and 442-443: check point size of text
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
