Properties and Compatibility Assessment of the Slurry with Quicklime for Fissure Restoration of Earthen Sites in Northwest China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Auhor investigated quicklime and slurry for the earthen site.
Overall this work is length-wise good. and the title is suitable however few things need to be modified.
In the introduction section- line 43-68 is out of reference. improve the overall citation to focus on the literature gap. Also the end why this work is essential is not very clear.
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-02280-4 this could be added
Why didn't you use any spectroscopic test such as SEM XRD?
Figure captions are too short to understand. Make useful caption
Why thermal conductivity is essential?
Just thought that for the compatible test why didn't you consider molecular level compatibility? what should be the minimum and maximum criteria for compatibility?
A discussion section is ok but the conclusion section needs an introductory sentence and then the bullet points can be added.
Can we consider whether your work and method section is suitable for global or only applicable for a particular region?
How your work will support the UN SDG goals?
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
GENERAL COMMENTS
The paper focuses on the analysis of earthen sites and development of slurries for repairing fissures and includes a compatibility assessment program.
The paper includes extensive experimental and data processing work that is interesting and should be published. However, there are revisions that must be undertaken before the paper can be considered for publication.
The experimental part must be better described as specified below.
The compatibility assessment is only based on physical properties. What about the chemical properties?
Future work is missing.
The text needs extensive language revision.
SPECIFIC COMMENTS
The reasoning behind the selection of the different liquid-solid ratios for each mixture is not clear; did you test the fresh consistency to arrive to these values? Or did you use results from the referenced publication obtained in the same slurries?
The authors should state the purpose of adding modified polyvinyl alcohol solution to the slurries and include literature in the introductory section as the only publication mentioned in the introduction resorts to its use in paper cleaning applications.
The tests performed (section 2.2) should be described in detail as the reader may not have access to the mentioned standards and literature; this section should also include details on sample curing in the case of the slurries (for how long and in which thermohygrometric conditions), sample preparation for the tests, and number of replicates for each test. Moreover, it is not clear which tests were performed in the soils and which were performed in the slurries.
The first paragraph of section 3.1.1 is superfluous as it is listing the results illustrated in Figure 2 (you may add data labels in the graphs to report the exact values obtained). The authors should rather report comparisons between the different slurries. There is no standard deviation Figure 2 – are the values reported the results of only one sample? Idem for the following results.
Note that I am not acquainted with the methods and models used for the compatibility assessment, so I cannot comment on these.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
This paper presents the experimental results of slurries with fly ash and quick lime obtained from China. The investigation focuses on the geotechnical properties and compatibility assessment. The topic of the paper is interesting, but the following comments should be reflected:
l The summary of index properties of site soils as raw natural materials should be presented.
l The standard deviation of test results for each set of samples should be given in figures.
l The loading rate for strength tests (compression, tension) should be described.
l There are different ways to determine the elastic modulus from the load-displacement and therefore the definition of elastic modulus adopted in this study should be presented.
l Explain how to obtain the cohesion and friction angle of samples, that is, the test method and the detailed procedures.
l Also, information on thermal test should be added, including the test device and test procedures.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
The Article entitled : "Properties and compatibility assessment of the slurry with quicklime for fissure restoration of earthen sites in northwest China" is very interesting scientific work.
The strong parts of the article are:
- the topic
- structure of the manuscript
- lots of research and significant investigation of the problem
- presentation of the conducted research.
However some minor issues can be improved before accepting the Manuscript. The recommended improvements are:
- it might be beneficial how this slurry are comparable with typically used in the field. Such tested reference sample might be beneficial.
- comparing these results with other similar in the field would present the motivation of the study
- the conclusion section should be rewritten, it is lack of perspectives and limitation of the study. Also it is hard to see the contribution into the body of knowledge with this research while the conclusions are only reffered to the results in this study
- references should be revised. please do not use to much autocitations
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors replied with satisfactory justification
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have carefully revised the manuscript and I recommend its publication.
Reviewer 4 Report
I accept the revised version
