Prediction Model for the Evolution of the Deterioration of Bricks in Heritage Buildings in Venice Caused by Climate Change

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Plagiarism more than 30% is found. Authors are advised to revise the manuscript by reducing the plagiarism

Equation 2 is unclear. Please rewrite.

Please replace “see Figure 1.” On line 62 with “as shown in Figure 1”

The unnecessary use of a comma is observed in several places in the manuscript such as Yue et al. [13], (line 108), Results show that, despite (line 184)

Figure 3 should be split into two figures and cited as Figure 3 and Figure 4 rather than cited as Figure 3a (Line 108, line 116, and line 119) and Figure 3b (Line 109 and line 122)

Please recheck Equation 4. It is “50?.” Written.

Equation 5 is unclear. Please rewrite.

Please replace “(see Table 1)” with “(refer to Table 1)”. It applies to everywhere it is required.

Line 143: Please make the following weblink “Municipality of Venice (https://www.comune.venezia.it/)” as a reference

Equation 6 is unclear. Please rewrite.

Please explain, what is the upper part of Section 3 (S3)” on line 151 and line 163.

Equation 7 is unclear. Please rewrite.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, first of all, thank you very much for the time spent on the article. We have corrected all your suggestions. See below for answers to your questions.

1. Plagiarism more than 30% is found. Authors are advised to revise the manuscript by reducing the plagiarism.

Authors declare that all data are new and unpublished. We have checked the new version with the filter of the University of Padova and we got 6% (residual) plagiarism.

2. Equation 2 is unclear. Please rewrite. 

Done

3. Please replace “see Figure 1.” On line 62 with “as shown in Figure 1”.

Thank you. 

4. The unnecessary use of a comma is observed in several places in the manuscript such as Yue et al. [13], (line 108), Results show that, despite (line 184).

The text has been amended.

5. Figure 3 should be split into two figures and cited as Figure 3 and Figure 4 rather than cited as Figure 3a (Line 108, line 116, and line 119) and Figure 3b (Line 109 and line 122). 

We have removed part of the old Figure 3, we only kept the reference. 

6. Please recheck Equation 4. It is “50?.” Written.

Yes, it is 50. 

7. Equation 5 is unclear. Please rewrite.

We have rewritten the equation.

8. Please replace “(see Table 1)” with “(refer to Table 1)”. It applies to everywhere it is required.

Thank you. We have done it.

9. Line 143: Please make the following weblink “Municipality of Venice (https://www.comune.venezia.it/)” as a reference.

We have included it, it is new reference 17.

10. Equation 6 is unclear. Please rewrite.

We have done it.

11. Please explain, what is the upper part of Section 3 (S3)” on line 151 and line 163. 

We have rephrased this part of the text.

12. Equation 7 is unclear. Please rewrite.

We have done it. Than you.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper describes a novel approach to asses deterioration of brick wall from the church in Venice built during 13th and 14th centuries. The study presents a well methodology that includes various factors affecting the deterioration process. However, there are some serious remarks that would help improve the manuscript and present it in the more scientific manner.

-          The title and the abstract should explain which materials are in place, to be clear to the readers from the beginning.

-          The abstract section needs to include the most important conclusions written in short, and not only the idea of the study.

-          The photogrammetric method must be explained in the Materials and methods section. Which instrument is used and how is it done.

-          Do you have an idea what was the mineralogical composition of the clay used to produce bricks that are tested? Are there any local literature on that? What was the kind of bricks in the wall?

-          It is not clear from the text who proposed the model to calculate UPC. Is it from the literature? Then you should reference it. Why wasn‚t the time introduced as cp₈ for consistance? This way, it seems it does not fit to the formula (1).

-          A better explanation of the parameters in formulas is needed, like in the case of the equation (2). There is a certain chinese sign wich is not defined. What is x mentioned in line 67, what does it present and how so the values are between -0.5 and +0.5?

-          The figures should be alligned to show the same scale of the wall image and the photogrammetric results. Make them all of the same siye, for both sides of the wall. What is the meaning of the table in blue color in Fig. 2? Are „front“ and „back“ defined in the text?

-          Explain in the tect that the same wall is tested from both sides, since it is not clear from the introductory text. Also, include that other factors then water also show the strong influence, such as exposure to wind and sun.

-          The literature is scarce, consider more of the papers on the subject.

-          Fig. 3 can be published in this form only if you get the consent of the publishers. In Fig.3 no type of brick is defined. Were those bricks without voids?

-          In Fig. 5 it is not clear which part of graph is related to the front and which to the back side of the tested wall.

-          Plese, avoid repeating the same words in the same sentence, such as in lines 33-35, 35-37, etc.

Author Response

The paper describes a novel approach to asses deterioration of brick wall from the church in Venice built during 13th and 14th centuries. The study presents a well methodology that includes various factors affecting the deterioration process. However, there are some serious remarks that would help improve the manuscript and present it in the more scientific manner.

1. The title and the abstract should explain which materials are in place, to be clear to the readers from the beginning.

Thank you for your suggestion. From the beginning of the text, and in the title, we have indicated that we are focused on the study of brick deterioration.

2. The abstract section needs to include the most important conclusions written in short, and not only the idea of the study.

We have included the most important conclusion.

3. The photogrammetric method must be explained in the Materials and methods section. Which instrument is used and how is it done.

We have referred to the software and included a reference where the method is described.

4. Do you have an idea what was the mineralogical composition of the clay used to produce bricks that are tested? Are there any local literature on that? What was the kind of bricks in the wall?

We have used published data, and all of them are cited. Additionally, the historical bricks of Santa Maria dei Servi Church were analyzed from their mineralogical and petrographic point of view, data are still not published (but submitted). For the dimension of the collected samples was not possible to investigate durability under stressed conditions or other physical/mechanical parameters of the materials. Anyway, for this work's general topic, we do not retain important characterization of the bricks of the case study.

5. It is not clear from the text who proposed the model to calculate UCP. Is it from the literature? Then you should reference it. Why wasn‚t the time introduced as cp₈ for consistance? This way, it seems it does not fit to the formula (1).

We proposed the UCP in this article. We formulate time outside of the rest of the climatic parameters. It's like saying: how much deteriorates (including all weather parameters) over a unit period of time, and then multiplying the result by time.

6. A better explanation of the parameters in formulas is needed, like in the case of the equation (2). There is a certain chinese sign wich is not defined. What is x mentioned in line 67, what does it present and how so the values are between -0.5 and +0.5?.

Dear reviewer, we have commented in the article that Equation 2 was inspired by the equation of the helicoid surface. In addition, we imposed the weight coefficients to be such that the UCP is in the interval (-0.5, 0.5) to force it to be in the linear range of the function. Thank you.

7. The figures should be alligned to show the same scale of the wall image and the photogrammetric results. Make them all of the same siye, for both sides of the wall. What is the meaning of the table in blue color in Fig. 2? Are „front“ and „back“ defined in the text?

We modified Fig. 2, We think that it is clearer now. Given the different levels of degradation on both sides, it is preferable that both sides have not the same scale. The table in Figure 2 is just a summary of the mean data of both sides. We have removed the "front" and "back" words, to "west" and "east", respectively. Thank you.

8. Explain in the tect that the same wall is tested from both sides, since it is not clear from the introductory text. Also, include that other factors then water also show the strong influence, such as exposure to wind and sun.

Thank you. We have done it.

9. The literature is scarce, consider more of the papers on the subject.

Two new references have been included:

Germinario L., Coletti C., ... Mazzoli, C: Microclimate and Weathering in Cultural Heritage: Design of a Monitoring Apparatus for Field Exposure Tests, Heritage 2022, 5:3211–3219 DOI:10.3390/heritage5040165

 Coletti, C., Cultrone, G., Maritan, L., Mazzoli, C.. Combined multi-analytical approach for study of pore system in bricks: How much porosity is there?, Materials Characterization 2016, 121, 82-92.

10. Fig3 can be published in this form only if you get the consent of the publishers. In Fig.3 no type of brick is defined. Were those bricks without voids?

We have modified Figure 3. Additionally, It is a CC By 4.0, I think that it can be used in an academic work provided that the reference is cited, as it is done here. Bricks are 50x50x50 without voids.

11. In Fig. 5 it is not clear which part of graph is related to the front and which to the back side of the tested wall.

We changed the notation, now we only use west side and east side. Thank you.

12. Please, avoid repeating the same words in the same sentence, such as in lines 33-35, 35-37, etc.

Thank you.  We have amended the text. 

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an interesting topic because so little has been done on brick in terms of establishing damage functions. It also seems valuable to approach the damage function by using a parameter that combine multiple climate features. 

While all this is positive I feel that the MS sits uneasily between describing damage at Santa Maria di Servi and laying out the concept of a Unified Climatic Parameter. Given the authors' intent to present this new parameter it seems more thought should have been given to the concept of damage functions and previous attempts to discuss the theory of these functions, perhaps with the judicious use of major reviews on the subject. There is also a lack of consistency to the mathematical layout and some symbols in my copy of the MS could not be read. 

I worried that the diagrams were haphazard as though they had been prepared by different authors. Some had grid lines others not; they had between 2 and 4 axes. It just looks unprofessional. I liked Fig. 5 stylistically, but why is the title at the top, that material should be in the caption below. The y-axis label was excessively long; surely "degradation depth (mm)" is enough, 

 TITLE "Prediction model for the evolution of deterioration of bricks in 2 heritage buildings caused by climate change"  I do not believe this title is the best one as climate not climate change is the key driver described in the MS and climate change is never mentioned beyond the introductory paragraph. I worried about " the evolution of deterioration" and wondered if it was simply deterioration that was discussed. There is a case for the MS being about "the evolution of deterioration" but it is not one the authors make in detailed argument. I worried much whether damage evolves or simply accumulates. I suspect the latter might be more consistent with our understanding.

ABSTRACT - abstracts should be short, but this one seems to avoid giving any detail about method and results. It as wordy at times "the superficial deterioration of bricks affected by climatic conditions." could easily be "the deterioration of bricks  by climate". The word "superficial" might not be justified given the depth of damage (40 cm in some cases!). More is needed in the absract on the climate parameters investigated. The site studied and the outcome would have been useful also.

KEYWORDS seem OK

MATHEMATICAL SYMBOLS. These often vary between italics and Roman script for no apparent reason. All parameters should be italic (subscripts can be Roman or italic). Function names should not be italic nor capitalised so it is "tan"  not "Tan". Some equations are parameterised and others are expressed in words as in equation 3. Mixing words and parameter symbols is not a good idea, so define things as parameters. . 

UNITS  The dimensions of the units troubled me enormously. In particular I get the impression that the output of equation was either mass loss or depth of damage?  The terms with in the tangent of course become dimensionsless via the coefficient a, but the xi-parameter requires the units m s-1? 

METHOD - FIGURE 1 Much is inconsistent here in terms of capitalisation and italicisation. I believe that all the terms cp1-cp7 should be defined in detail (with the units of measurement) in the text of the method. What are annual freezing days? In some definitions this might just mean a day of frost (i.e. temperatures below zero), but here I think it might mean a day where freezing occurred? Perhaps Tmax>0 Tmin<0?? What does relative humidity mean - it is humidity transition that causes crystallisation * (as in Fig. 3)

Given UPC is a new parameter proposed in this MS much more detail and exploration is needed to explain why it was chosen and that it is really additive and the use of a tangent needs more detail. I think I can see why it was chosen (slopes in Fig. 5), but many readers will find it hard to justify on a theoretical basis, so more was needed. Additionally some might question why the climate parameters are additive. Some are multiplicative - perhaps wind driven rain would be an obvious example..

UPC- is this really universal? The authors should justify this universality or consider a slightly narrower term. Furthermore, is it a climate parameter or a damage parameter. Climate is the input and damage the output, so it may be the latter as equation 8 seems to make recession and UPC proportional. However, the authors need to make such decisions.

Table 1. Are annual values of RH really useful in damage functions or is this table merely illustrative? 

Figure 2 the caption talks only of the facades and does not describe the graphs. These might be best labelled (c) (d)?  Little tables appear in Fig. 2 without any units. 

line 127 claims "As previously mentioned, the UCP is a weighted linear combination of the climatic"  This linearity is mentioned before, but I don't remember the weighting parameters (coefficients) discussed. 

Figure 3. What is a negative mass loss? This seemed hard to understand. Explain the meanings of the lines. Has permission been granted to copy these diagram elements?

CONCLUSION " graphical representation of the recession rate as a function of time and of the UPC enables future deterioration rates to be predicted. "  This needs much more justification in the text of the paper to be a conclusion. Is it really true that it is the graphical representation that allows this. 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE There are many mistake and poor word choices. The MS needs to be carefully read by someone fluent in English. Some examples of this would be: 

GRAMMAR  "Buildings constructions"  nouns as adjectives are never plural. so it should be "Building constructions" 
WORD CHOICE . "the exposition times " is better as "the exposure times" the word exposition means a comprehensive explanation/presentation or to make a large public exhibition of goods 

REFERENCING Note on referencing:  [12][13] should appear as [12,13]

Author Response

This is an interesting topic because so little has been done on brick in terms of establishing damage functions. It also seems valuable to approach the damage function by using a parameter that combine multiple climate features. 

While all this is positive I feel that the MS sits uneasily between describing damage at Santa Maria di Servi and laying out the concept of a Unified Climatic Parameter. Given the authors' intent to present this new parameter it seems more thought should have been given to the concept of damage functions and previous attempts to discuss the theory of these functions, perhaps with the judicious use of major reviews on the subject. There is also a lack of consistency to the mathematical layout and some symbols in my copy of the MS could not be read. 

I worried that the diagrams were haphazard as though they had been prepared by different authors. Some had grid lines others not; they had between 2 and 4 axes. It just looks unprofessional. I liked Fig. 5 stylistically, but why is the title at the top, that material should be in the caption below. The y-axis label was excessively long; surely "degradation depth (mm)" is enough, 

Thank you very much. Figure 5 has been amended. 

TITLE "Prediction model for the evolution of deterioration of bricks in 2 heritage buildings caused by climate change" I do not believe this title is the best one as climate not climate change is the key driver described in the MS and climate change is never mentioned beyond the introductory paragraph. I worried about " the evolution of deterioration" and wondered if it was simply deterioration that was discussed. There is a case for the MS being about "the evolution of deterioration" but it is not one the authors make in detailed argument. I worried much whether damage evolves or simply accumulates. I suspect the latter might be more consistent with our understanding.

We totally agree with what you point out about climate change, which only appears at the beginning. We formulate the decay function maintaining linearity throughout the process so that damage can accumulate. With the help of the graph shown in Figure 5 (or Eq.2), the deterioration in different climatic scenarios (with the corresponding duration) can be calculated, and make the sum to obtain the total deterioration. We have added a comment about it. Thank you very much for your observation.

ABSTRACT - abstracts should be short, but this one seems to avoid giving any detail about method and results. It is wordy at times "the superficial deterioration of bricks affected by climatic conditions." could easily be "the deterioration of bricks by climate". The word "superficial" might not be justified given the depth of damage (40 cm in some cases!). More is needed in the absract on the climate parameters investigated. The site studied and the outcome would have been useful also.

The reviewer is right that damage in certain cases is important and affects not only the surface. However, we would like to keep the word “superficial”, since we do not deal with other inner parameters that can also deteriorate (modulus of elasticity, Poisson's ratio, …) but only with measures taken in the wall´s surface. In addition, as the reviewer suggests, some information is included in the abstract about the climatic parameters investigated. The authors want to point out that the proposed decay function is a new idea that for sure needs to be improved in future works. Thank you.

KEYWORDS seem OK

MATHEMATICAL SYMBOLS. These often vary between italics and Roman script for no apparent reason. All parameters should be italic (subscripts can be Roman or italic). Function names should not be italic nor capitalised so it is "tan" not "Tan". Some equations are parameterised and others are expressed in words as in equation 3. Mixing words and parameter symbols is not a good idea, so define things as parameters.

Thank you very much. The text has been amended.

UNITS. The dimensions of the units troubled me enormously. In particular I get the impression that the output of equation was either mass loss or depth of damage?  The terms with in the tangent of course become dimensionless via the coefficient a, but the xi-parameter requires the units m s-1? 

Sorry for the trouble. The output of the Eq.2 and Fig.5 is in mm. Parameter ξ is mm/year, and the terms within the tangent are dimensionless. This point has been clarified in the new version.

METHOD - FIGURE 1 Much is inconsistent here in terms of capitalisation and italicisation. I believe that all the terms cp1-cp7 should be defined in detail (with the units of measurement) in the text of the method. What are annual freezing days? In some definitions this might just mean a day of frost (i.e. temperatures below zero), but here I think it might mean a day where freezing occurred? Perhaps Tmax>0 Tmin<0?? What does relative humidity mean - it is humidity transition that causes crystallisation * (as in Fig. 3)

We have modified Figure 1 following your suggestions.

The terms cp1 to cpn in Figure 1 are just proposed parameters whose influence depends on each particular site. This is not a closed list; on the contrary, it has to be particularized for each study. In this study, we have used available data from local climate stations. In this regard, the mean relative humidity is taken from climatic station records and so it is not related to the crystallization itself.

Regarding the annual freezing days' definition, as the reviewer comments, it is the mean number of days per year with Tmax>0 and Tmin<0.

Given UPC is a new parameter proposed in this MS much more detail and exploration is needed to explain why it was chosen and that it is really additive and the use of a tangent needs more detail. I think I can see why it was chosen (slopes in Fig. 5), but many readers will find it hard to justify on a theoretical basis, so more was needed. Additionally, some might question why the climate parameters are additive. Some are multiplicative - perhaps wind driven rain would be an obvious example.

The authors fully agree with the Reviewer's point of view. More explanations have been added about the use of the tangent function and the imposed limits. The reviewer is right about the assumption of the additivity of the climate parameters, a more elaborated relationship will be more realistic but also more complex and given the uncertainties inherent to the climatic issues, the simplest way is chosen as a first approximation.

UCP- is this really universal? The authors should justify this universality or consider a slightly narrower term. Furthermore, is it a climate parameter or a damage parameter. Climate is the input and damage the output, so it may be the latter as equation 8 seems to make recession and UPC proportional. However, the authors need to make such decisions.

Thank you for your question. UCP has been conceived to be universal, and it is a climate parameter. We are aware that the presented formulation is daring. Furthermore, interaction phenomena may be against our linearity. Our approach is only a proposal, which, when properly adjusted, may be promising.

Table 1. Are annual values of RH really useful in damage functions or is this table merely illustrative? 

Table 1 is not illustrative; it summarizes the data available from local stations. A priori, the value of RH seems to be a key factor in the damage to brick façades. However, in the case study, peak sun hours per day have resulted in the most relevant parameter.

In a general case, all the available data need to be considered in the study.

Figure 2 the caption talks only of the facades and does not describe the graphs. These might be best labelled (c) (d)?  Little tables appear in Fig. 2 without any units. 

Figure 2 has been remodeled.

line 127 claims "As previously mentioned, the UCP is a weighted linear combination of the climatic". This linearity is mentioned before, but I don't remember the weighting parameters (coefficients) discussed. 

We have enlarged the explanation:

with a_i as the weighting coefficients of the climatic parameters (cp_i) considered, see Figure 1. In doing so, the interaction phenomena between the different climatic parameters are not considered.

Figure 3. What is a negative mass loss? This seemed hard to understand. Explain the meanings of the lines. Has permission been granted to copy these diagram elements?

We modified Figure 3. The license type (CC By 4.0) allows us to use it for academic purposes if properly mentioned. The part of salt crystallization has been removed. We decide to remove it since it is already published in an original paper. In the latter also weight loss and other information about the studied bricks (mineralogy, petrography, durability) were considered, so the reader can simply go to the reference.

CONCLUSION " graphical representation of the recession rate as a function of time and of the UPC enables future deterioration rates to be predicted. " This needs much more justification in the text of the paper to be a conclusion. Is it really true that it is the graphical representation that allows this. 

We have reworded the sentence. The new one is:

The proposed methodology allows obtaining the deterioration under different climatic scenarios, and the calculation of the total deterioration by adding the different scenarios.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE There are many mistake and poor word choices. The MS needs to be carefully read by someone fluent in English. Some examples of this would be: 

Thanks. English of the text has been reviewed by a native English speaker.

GRAMMAR  "Buildings constructions"  nouns as adjectives are never plural. so it should be "Building constructions".

Thank you for the advice.

WORD CHOICE . "the exposition times " is better as "the exposure times" the word exposition means a comprehensive explanation/presentation or to make a large public exhibition of goods.

Thank you, we have changed it.

REFERENCING Note on referencing:  [12][13] should appear as [12,13]. 

We have amended it.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been improved and can be published.

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have taken the revisions seriously and although I continue to worry about universality and the relation to climate change, I believe it can be published.