Simulation Research on Effects of Ambient Pressure on Plug-Holing Phenomenon in Tunnel Fires with a Shaft
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
These authors presented a simulating study on the effects of ambient pressures on plug-holing phenomenon in tunnel fires with a shaft by FDS. The effects of different ambient pressures on the smoke movement, temperature distribution and critical Richard number or critical shaft height for plug-holing were analyzed. The results can provide references for the design of natural ventilation system in the tunnel fires at lower ambient pressure.
Detailed comments are as follows.
1.Although this paper is a numerical study as claimed in the title, the main work of this paper is to use FDS software to analyze the simulation results, so it would be more appropriate to use simulation research as the title.
2.In the discussion of grid-independence, the overall integration result or representative extreme value is generally used as the comparison index. Is the temperature distribution at 15m selected in this paper representative?
3.The statement in Table 2 that the coefficient C is derived from equation 8 is obviously wrong and needs to be corrected.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper seems well structured and in the format of a scientific paper, although I think it does not contribute anything new.
Regarding the structure of the article I recommend:
1. Simplify the Abstract, I think it should give a more general idea of the article that it now expresses.
2. I have found a bibliography very similar to this paper https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2018.07.022 that is not being cited and that has almost the same content.
3. I find the references not very relevant, even though Asia is a large market in the development of infrastructures, we must not forget the technological advances and studies on fire fighting that, for example, it has the tunnel safety regulations of the European Union or from some of the states in the USA, that is why I am surprised not to find reference to any article outside of Asia.
4. I do not go into the detail of the article, the English is correct, but the justification of the origin of the formulas is not well explained.
5. A justification must be provided as to why it is decided to carry out the simulation with the values that are proposed.
6. The conclusions being brief, which is to be appreciated, do not explain well the results that are reached.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Review: Fire-2282794
The manuscript Fire-2282794 reports the "Numerical investigation on effects of ambient pressure on 2 plug-holing phenomenon in tunnel fires with a shaft". The present paper describes an important application about a theme of the environmental engineering using a fire dynamics simulator. The article is good, but I think authors must improve revision. While that, Authors need to update the references of work. The manuscript needs of minor reviews before publishing. Therefore, we are suggesting some points below
1. The abstract of work is very lengthy. I think authors must improve the abstract to a more concentrated way including the more important results of the article.
2. The text of work is well written, but I'm suggesting to authors check the grammatical part of language (English) in article. After reviewing, the article can be considered for a possible publication.
3. The novelty of work is not clear. The novelty of article needs to be detailed in introduction of work. Some novel points can be found in the manuscript body and, thus, this can be used to describe the novelty.
4. In the item 2 of work, the text about Numerical modeling is bad. Authors need to report the detailed methodology. This is important to reader.
5. In the item 3 (results and discussion) of work, I am suggesting to authors that include the validation in this item.
6. In the conclusion, authors need to discuss the proposed theme with its innovation proposal.
7. For contributing to the Fire journal, the authors must introduce some references (2018-2023) of the Fire journal in text of work.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I agree with the changes that the authors of the paper have made.
