Characterizing Surface Waviness of Aluminum Alloy: An Approach to Minimize Post-Processing in Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) Production

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors proposed a study about waviness changes in WAAM of aluminum alloys by varying process parameters. The topic fits the journal and has a valid interest both in academia and industry. The paper is very short with only one test and a few scenarios, in addition introduction is extremely limited. Since the topic, the materials, and methods are worth the investigation and the results are interesting, the reviewer suggests a careful major revision.

• Abstract needs a severe restyling: How did this paper study the waviness? What are the main results? Future perspectives?
• The introduction is too limited; it must be enlarged. No comparable studies are reported in the literature?
• In the introduction, add some details about this work and the adopted methodologies.
• Please also add some new references that studied waviness and roughness in 3D printing (i.e. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40964-025-01285-0).
• Section 4 seems to be conclusions and not a discussion.
• Some details about ANOVA analysis should be added.
• Please explain the chosen values for parameters.
• Was any standard used for waviness measurement?
• Why was roughness not computed?
• Do those parameters affect the hardness of the samples?
• Lines 91-92, please add the units.
• A deeper magnification, or an SEM image of the samples, should be added.
• The experimental part is very limited: One test and a few scenarios. Why?
• Figure 1 needs a scale
• Please add units in the X and Y axes (Figures 3,4, and 5)
• Figures 3,4, and 5 can be joined together.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper presents the effect of the key process parameters on the surface waviness on WAAM of aluminum alloy. The authors conclude that the certain combination of high voltage and wire feed speed is optimal for minimizing the waviness and reduced post-processing. However there are certain comments and observations given below

Comment 1 :- The abstract of the manuscript is very weak. It is advised to re-write the abstract in the rigorous-scientific manner. There is no explanation, advantages and disadvantages, and reason why the proposed methods has been chosen by the authors. The abstract completely lacks the motivation behind the proposed research. 

Comment 2:- If the wire stick out was kept constant i.e. 19mm the term  in the equation on page 8 is redundant, please recheck it . Also the manuscript suffers with severe editorial mistakes not numbering the equation is one of them.

Comment 3:- The term “DF” written in Table 5 and 6 is not defined in manuscript. Also reported DF(presumably degree of freedom ) are strange i.e. voltage listed with DF=2 despite only two levels. DF should be 1 for two-level factor, indicating a miscalculation and unable to match with and justify the results presented in the manuscript. 

Comment 4 :- The Table 7 seems redundant as it shows only one entry and the results presented in it were already written in line 161. It appears authors included table just for the sake on including table.

Comment 5:- Authors didn't compare their results with previous studies, also authors didn't proved their scientific lines in discussion with valid references.

Comment 6: - Page 8 line 160-161, the measured waviness is 0.125 and predicted vale in 0.056. The manuscript says “difference of 7%”

1. It seems that this is inaccurate representation of results the actual difference is 55%
2. This is a huge difference, How does authors reconcile the large error between predicted and measured waviness

comment 7-Please include limitation of study in conclusion.

Comment 8:some reference are too old such as 1998. please replace and also increase references more than 20 atleast

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors answered all the questions and improved the paper quality.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the positive feedback and for recognizing the improvements made to the manuscript. We truly appreciate the time and effort taken to review our work.

Thank you!

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Authors have revised manuscripts well but still there are some problems, 

please check line 130 which seems incomplete.

Still discussion contains only one reference although discussion scenic line are too many. please consider inputting references in reasonings written in discussion.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for their constructive feedback and for acknowledging the improvements in the revised manuscript. The points raised have been carefully addressed as follows:

Comment 1: Line 130 seems incomplete.
Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with this comment. Therefore, we have revised the sentence to make it complete and clear. The updated text can be found in the Materials and Methods section, lines 129–132.

Comment 2: The discussion contains only one reference, although there are many reasoning statements. Please consider adding references to support the discussion.
Response 2: We agree with this point. The discussion has been reformatted and includes stronger references to support the reasoning. The updated text can be found in the Discussion section, lines 222–289.

We thank the reviewer for their valuable comments and suggestions, which have helped us improve the clarity and quality of the manuscript.

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I will accept the manuscript this time with the condition to correct line 131  in proofread

each plate, five beads were evaluated in this manner, and the results were averaged to 131 obtain the mean surface waviness.

if it is complete, the start with capital letter "Each....."