Experimental Study on the Cleaning Performance of Hot Air Flow Cleaning Device

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Brief summary:

The paper aims to improve the cleaning performance of a combine harvester through the application of a hot air flow cleaning device. The influence of operation parameters on the cleaning performance was studied. Five experimental factors: outlet temperature, fan speed, louver sieve temperature, louver sieve inclination, and eccentric wheel speed were evaluated through a single-factor test, with cleaning loss rate and impurity rate (defined by authors) as test indices. The louver sieve inclination and eccentric wheel speed appeared to have no apparent influence. Then the central composite rotatable test was adopted to attain the optimal operation parameters. The optimal parameter combination optimized by response surface analysis appears to be: the outlet temperature 40.7 ℃, the fan speed 1300 rpm, and the louver sieve temperature 50 ℃. In this case, the loss rate was 0.75% and the impurity rate was 1.75%, respectively. A reference for the design of the moist rice cleaning device and the selection of its working parameters is, therefore, provided.

Broad comments:

The keywords must be improved to fit the contents of the paper, some of them could be put together, and others should be corrected, deleted, or added. My recommendation is: moist rice harvester optimization; hot air flow cleaning device; response surface analysis; central composite rotatable test.

The introduction is fine, it presents various findings of other researchers and it explains well the novelty of the studied problem.

The materials and methods should be improved, some information is missing:

1.       How is the grain mass discharged from the tail of the cleaning room determined?

2.       What is the difference between the mass of impurities discharged by the transport grain tube and the total mass of grains and impurities discharged by the transport grain tube? How and where are both masses measured?

3.       What is the reason for using the Greek letter omega, most often denoting angular frequency, to denote mass?

The results and discussion seem to be unnecessarily confusing, spaces are missing between paragraphs (subchapters), and some subheadings could be reduced to be briefer and concise:

1. The effect of outlet temperature on cleaning performance   2. Influence of the fan rotation speed on the cleaning performance 3. Influence of louver sieve temperature on cleaning performance 4. Impact of louver sieve inclination on cleaning performance 5. Influence of eccentric wheel speed on cleaning performance

The conclusion is not bad, but some benefits outcoming from the research should be outlined in the end, it should improve the attraction of the paper.

Specific comments:

20         “center” should be corrected to “central”

83         “was” should be changed to “were”

108       “air flow rate” would be more appropriate than “air volume”

110       use lowercase “k” in the unit “kW”!

116       the meaning is not clear, should you replace “which” by “it”?

124       “that includes” should be used

136       “kW” (W should be capitalized)

185       “at 44℃” should be moved forward (immediately after 2.12%)

306       “P1, P2” are almost everywhere in the manuscript written with the digits as subscripts; couldn’t it be the same here?

375       Change the semicolon to a dot and start a new sentence!

382-4    There is no need to repeat the verb “is”, it is there already, so delete the three redundant “is” in the second part of the sentence.

The comments are included in the "Suggestions for Authors" field.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is quite interesting, well structured, and the conclusions agree with the results. Overall, the is well written but it is strongly suggested that authors revise the use of the language throughout the paper. A marked file is attached showing some grammar issues.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The use of the language must be revised. A marked file is attached highlighting some grammar issues.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The study is tecnically sound and well written. Please see my comments below for your consideration:

- L12, operation -> operational

- L17, decreases -> decreased

- L18, increases -> increased

- L34, wet-base -> wet basis

- Introduction: The working principle of a typical rice combine harvester needs to be added with a focus on the related components

- L141, why using a self-made threshing device instead of taking samples from a commercial combine harvester after its threshing unit?

- L157, did authors make sure both the proportion and moist content the same as in table 2. there must be some errors as it is impossible to keep the exact numbers in every sample preparation. This information needs to be added.

- L161, why 5 kg/s? this number seems a little bit on the lower end side. would this affect the experimental results?

- Since the highest temperature reached 60C, would that affect the biological and chemical properties of rice material? Please clarify.

- Methods: orthogonal experiment method is missing

- Table 4 and figure 3 have duplicated information, please eliminate one; same problem with all other sections below

- Table 5, p-value = 0???; same problem in all other tables below

 

the paper must be reviewed by native speaker or person with lots technical writing experience in English 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the revision

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