Design and Testing of a Directional Clamping and Reverse Breaking Device for Corn Straw

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article shows characteristics of originality and scientific novelty. The concept as well as the organizational layout of the article is, in my opinion, correctly prepared. It contains important factual and practical aspects concerning it contains important factual and practical aspects concerning the design and testing of corn stover equipment, demonstrating technological advances and innovations. The authors correctly designed the research experiment and selected the research methods. The introduction, material and methods and results are well described, the tables and figures are well presented and add to the text of the manuscript.

However, almost no discussion of the results. There are many important results obtained from the experiments, however they have not been discussed. The literature review does not integrate and interpret the existing results of the original research. The authors have not interpreted their own research results and have not conducted a substantive discussion of them in relation to previous research, and research by other authors. Authors should expand the topic of discussion of results covering all results obtained and compare them with other studies.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to provide us with valuable feedback. As of now, we have completed the revision of the manuscript.

Firstly, there is the discussion and results section. We have added an additional chapter to this section, which you can see in the revised content in lines 676-714 of the manuscript.

Secondly, the existing research results have been modified accordingly in the introduction section. You can see the modified content in lines 59 to 80 of the manuscript.

Finally, in the comparison section between the discussion and the results, we have added modified content in lines 663 to 665.

Thank you again for your valuable

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled “Design and testing of a directional clamping and reverse breaking device for corn straw” is presented. I have some suggestions:

1.      The abstract part should also describe the need and scope of the study.

2.      Introduction part should include recent studies in the field and highlight the challenges to overcome the addressed problem.

3.      Conclusion part should have straightforward outcomes of the study.

Minor revision

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to provide us with valuable feedback. As of now, we have completed the revision of the manuscript.
Firstly, there is the abstract section, which we have made modifications to clarify the needs and scope of the research; You can see the revised content in the manuscript on 11-15 and 28-30.
Next is the introduction section, where we have made modifications to the content. You can see the corresponding modifications on lines 37-80.
Finally, in the conclusion section, we have rewritten the research results section and written it into a new chapter. You can see the corresponding modifications in lines 677-714 and 770-778.

Thank you again for your valuable suggestions

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Manuscript present a research work about a numerical and experimental study of velocity on the corn harvesting parameters. Manuscript is have five very well prepared parts. Below can be found few of suggestion to improve a manuscript.

–         Please use one or two references for sentence. In line 46 or 49 you can find for example 5 or more references for one sentence.

–         @ line 191 - Table caption and table should be on the same page.  

–         Please include more precise reference information about corn mechanical parameters in line 290-292.

–         W line 364 please describe how do you measure moisture of corn.

–         @ line 415  could you present  value of significant impact or if “P” is probability factor please use small letter .

–         Please improve a text and reference in the information about statistical analysis method, good example you can find in this papers: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma16124281 .

–         Please improve the conclusion for information on how the article supplemented the knowledge gaps in the available literature.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to provide us with valuable feedback. So far, we have completed the revisions to the manuscript.

Firstly, there is a revision of the references. Due to the similarity in the harvesting equipment of fresh corn among peers, we adopted a relatively lazy approach to simplify the summary before making any modifications. Therefore, we have rewritten the citation of the introduction and subsequent content in the references, making the citation of the references more reasonable. You can see the corresponding modifications in lines 37-80.

Secondly, the mechanical parameters and other information of the picking device set up in this article. Sorry, the ANSYS analysis did not involve the relevant material parameters of the picking mechanism. Lines 290-292 of the original text were theoretically analyzed by scholars in this field using this analysis software, that is, the ANSYS analysis focuses on the load applied within the action area, rather than the picking mechanism acting on the fruit ear. The same method was used for the analysis in this article. Of course, we have made modifications to the physical parameter definition of the ear, and you can see the corresponding modifications in lines 340-343.

Then there is the measurement method for corn moisture content, which we have made modifications to. You can see the corresponding modifications in lines 416-430.

Next is the modification of the probability factor p. Indeed, p should be in lowercase, and we have made modifications. We have also made modifications to the description of the degree of influence of each factor. You can see the corresponding modifications in lines 478-576.

Finally, we have made modifications to the description of the conclusion and the statistical analysis. You can see the corresponding modifications in 716-778. As for the use of chart types for statistical analysis methods, we have carefully reviewed the relevant literature (843 lines). However, as this experiment is only a bench test and no corresponding prototype test has been conducted, the suitable statistical analysis content for this device should be the energy consumption part. Currently, it is only the bench test stage. We will consider using corresponding statistical analysis methods when conducting prototype tests in the future.

Thank you again for your valuable suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

In this article useful information on Design and testing of a directional clamping and reverse breaking device for corn straw has been provided. However, the authors need to address following comments in order to publish in this journal.

1.      Introduction is very general without any data. Author should add overall energy consumption and emission data . They can refer following most related articles for related information: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2017.03.009

2.      Many statements in introduction are without references. Authors should reference each statement from where it was extracted.

3.      No performance has been reported.

4.      They should add a section on cost/economics.

5.      They should add more results and analysis.

6.      Overall English need to improve.

Article need major revision for publication.

In this article useful information on Design and testing of a directional clamping and reverse breaking device for corn straw has been provided. However, the authors need to address following comments in order to publish in this journal.

1.      Introduction is very general without any data. Author should add overall energy consumption and emission data . They can refer following most related articles for related information: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2017.03.009

2.      Many statements in introduction are without references. Authors should reference each statement from where it was extracted.

3.      No performance has been reported.

4.      They should add a section on cost/economics.

5.      They should add more results and analysis.

6.      Overall English need to improve.

Article need major revision for publication.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to provide us with valuable feedback. So far, we have completed the revisions to the manuscript.

Firstly, there is the issue of data expression content. We have carefully reviewed the relevant literature (line 829). We are sorry that we did not use statistical analysis methods to present the corresponding chart analysis content. As this manuscript is only a bench test and does not have corresponding prototype tests, there may be a relative lack of data expression. The content on energy consumption (fuel consumption) should be processed and produced in the prototype, followed by field experiments, and then sorted out through statistical analysis methods. We have made corresponding modifications to the data related to this bench test in lines 770-778. As for energy consumption, energy consumption and specific emissions are measured after product conversion. This article only focuses on the bench test of the picking mechanism and does not use relevant fossil fuels, so it does not involve energy consumption and emissions.

Then there is the issue of reference citation in the introduction section. Due to the similarity of fresh corn harvesting devices in the same industry, we adopted a relatively lazy approach to simplify and summarize before making any modifications. Therefore, we have rewritten the citation of the introduction and subsequent content in the references, making the citation of the references more reasonable. You can see the corresponding modifications in lines 37-80.

Then,there is the issue of performance reporting. As this article mainly focuses on the feasibility of the ear picking device through bench testing, further improvement is needed to facilitate the conversion of results, that is, to produce a prototype. Therefore, we apologize that we are unable to provide the corresponding performance report before the prototype is processed.

Secondly, regarding the issue of economic content, this article only provides a preliminary design and drawing of the fresh corn harvesting device. The relevant cooperation mechanisms are still being optimized, and the overall economic cost of the header will be calculated and optimized in the future.

Then there is the issue of results and analysis content. Yes, we have made modifications to the description in this section of the manuscript. We have rewritten this section and made significant modifications. You can see the corresponding modifications in lines 473-675 and 676-714. This article mainly focuses on the operational standards for harvesting fresh corn as the goal for bench testing and analysis, which has certain limitations. In the later stage, other related experiments will be conducted and relevant analysis will be conducted to provide more comprehensive theoretical research for the development of the harvesting header.

Finally, there is a problem with English expression. I'm sorry for giving you such a bad experience. The subject of this article, fresh corn ears(or ears), has been annotated in red in multiple places to distinguish it from other vocabulary expressions. The meaning of ears and fresh con ears in the text is the same (30 lines). In addition, we have further polished the English version of the entire text.

Thank you again for your valuable suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Accept 

Reviewer 3 Report

Well, in revised version everything is fine. 

Congratulations, your paper is interesting :)