Deformation Analysis of Large-Scale Rock Slopes Considering the Effect of Microseismic Events

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I read the third new version of the manuscript titled: “Deformation Analysis of Large-scale Rock Slope  Considering the Effect of Microseismic Events”, authors: Linlu Dong et al. The present version of the manuscript is enhanced. Anyway, during my second review I pointed out some mistakes in the references that did not take into consideration by the authors. Indeed, the present version of the manuscript shows the same mistakes. In particular:

1)      Text, Line 27: Conforti and Letto  PLEASE CHANGE in Conforti and Ietto

2)      Text, Line 30: Letto et al., PLEASE CHANGE in Ietto et al.

3)      References, Line 359: Conforti and Letto  PLEASE CHANGE in Conforti and Ietto

4)      References, Line 361: Letto,F, Perri,F  Cella,F  PLEASE CHANGE in: Ietto,F, Perri,F  Cella,F  .

Carried out these ones, in my opinion, the present version of the manuscript can be considered for publication in Applied Sciences Journal.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Please find the attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments to the Authors:

In the manuscript titled "Deformation Analysis of Large-scale Rock Slope Considering the Effect of Microseismic Events”, the authors discuss a case-study regarding the deformation feedback analysis of rock mass, using the microseismic monitoring and the field deformation data. The study area is located in Baihetan in Yunan Province, China. The research is based on the use of the FLAC3D software relying on the Microseismic monitoring data. The results show that the used approach provides an acceptable simulation analysis of the slope stability, providing a quantitative evaluation of the rock mass damage.

The arguments in the paper seem intuitively reasonable also for me that I am not an expert of specific numerical method such as the one used in this paper. Anyway, in my opinion the manuscript in this current form cannot be published in the “Applied Sciences” Journal and there are some issues to be worked out. Therefore, I retain that the manuscript needs a Major Revision.

Concerning the research as a whole, the following general considerations can be reported:

1.      The authors should revise the English form: several words are not appropriate and the grammatical form needs a significant improvement in some parts. The authors are invited to eliminate all grammatical or spelling errors and to conform the text to a correct scientific English.

2.      In the section Introduction many assumptions (lines from 25 to 37) are not supported by specific references. The authors are invited to refer to a wider scientific literature. Furthermore, a concise description of the used software (FLAC3D) could help the reader to reach a better understanding.

3.      In the Figure 1, the legend is unreadable. The authors are invited to increase the font in the figure.

4.      In the Section 3.1. Project Overview adding a map could help the reader to locate the mentioned topography sites. Furthermore, where the sites and faults (C3, C3-1 F17, F16, F14) mentioned in the text are located? Adding a specific map would be useful here as well.

5.      The geological profiles of the Figures 2 and 5 should be placed in the above mentioned topographic map.

6.      In the text there are many symbols and numbers referred to faults, belts, sites etc. that have not location in a specific map. Therefore, reading and understanding the text is very difficult (e.g. between the lines 180-181).

7.      Lines 186-189: The authors classified the rock masses into four categories following the GB50287-2006 Chinese scheme. It is not specified if the used classification scheme is a qualitative classification scheme of the mechanical properties of the rock masses. Furthermore, in my opinion, showing this scheme in a new table or using a more known international scheme (e.g., Bieniawski or similar) would be useful to an international reader.

8.      Furthermore, how many samples were analyzed for the classification of each mechanical class?

9.      The section: “Discussion Data” is missing. The authors are invited to enhance the discussion of their results and to compare them with other relevant studies in a specific section. In particular, the authors are invited to compare their results with similar ones and to emphasize what is new in their research and what is already known for the international scientific community. Furthermore. The authors should explain the limits of the adopted approach and how it increases the scientific knowledge.

10.  Finally, the Authors should make an effort to give a stronger interest to their research, emphasizing the improvement of the treaty topic. In particular, in my opinion, the authors should better stress what is new in the proposed research.

The authors can find my detailed notes and suggestions on the attached Pdf docu

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We thank the editors and reviewers for providing kind suggestions and we have modified the text correspondingly (in red in the revised text).

1. The authors should revise the English form: several words are not appropriate and the grammatical form needs a significant improvement in some parts. The authors are invited to eliminate all grammatical or spelling errors and to conform the text to a correct scientific English.

 Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. We have been able to change the inappropriate words and sentences. Corresponding changes have been made in the revised text in red. 

2. In the section Introduction many assumptions (lines from 25 to 37) are not supported by specific references. The authors are invited to refer to a wider scientific literature. Furthermore, a concise description of the used software (FLAC3D) could help the reader to reach a better understanding. 

Re: We have cited references 1 and 2 as the support materials for the article as required. We also added reference 13 as an introduction to FLAC3D software. Thanks for the constructive comments. 

3. In the Figure 1, the legend is unreadable. The authors are invited to increase the font in the figure. 

Re: This is the actual live photo. We have deepened the font. Corresponding changes have been made in the revised text in red. 

4. In the Section 3.1. Project Overview adding a map could help the reader to locate the mentioned topography sites. Furthermore, where the sites and faults (C3, C3-1 F17, F16, F14) mentioned in the text are located? Adding a specific map would be useful here as well. 3 

Re: We agree. We have explained these abbreviations (C3, C3-1 F17, F16, F14) and added Table1 and Table 2 to describe the location of the faults. More details can be found in the enlarged Figure 3 in the revised text. Corresponding changes have been made in the revised text in red. 

5. The geological profiles of the Figures 2 and 5 should be placed in the above mentioned topographic map. 

Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. For a good understanding, the revised Figures 3 and 6 are still placed separately. Moreover, Tables 1,2 and 3 are added for better description of the characteristics of interlayers and faults. Corresponding changes have been made in the revised text in red. 

6. In the text there are many symbols and numbers referred to faults, belts, sites etc. that have not location in a specific map. Therefore, reading and understanding the text is very difficult (e.g. between the lines 180-181) 

Re: We agree. Tables 1,2 and 3 are added for better description of the characteristics of interlayers and faults. Corresponding changes have been made in the revised text in red. 

7. Lines 186-189: The authors classified the rock masses into four categories following the GB50287-2006 Chinese scheme. It is not specified if the used classification scheme is a qualitative classification scheme of the mechanical properties of the rock masses. Furthermore, in my opinion, showing this scheme in a new table or using a more known international scheme (e.g., Bieniawski or similar) would be useful to an international reader.

 Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. The correlation between the Chinese criterion and RQD has been listed in the revised text. Corresponding changes have been made in the revised text in red. 

8. Furthermore, how many samples were analyzed for the classification of each mechanical class? 

Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. There is no need to analyze the samples for the 4 classification of each mechanical class. Several geological exploration tunnels were excavated in the such large rock slope engineering for direct understanding of the classification of each mechanical class.

 9. The section: “Discussion Data” is missing. The authors are invited to enhance the discussion of their results and to compare them with other relevant studies in a specific section. In particular, the authors are invited to compare their results with similar ones and to emphasize what is new in their research and what is already known for the international scientific community. Furthermore， The authors should explain the limits of the adopted approach and how it increases the scientific knowledge. 

Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. The detailed discussion is addressed in Sect. 4.3.We have carried out a data comparison to show the superiority of the proposed method. Compared with the traditional method, the proposed method in the present study can better invert the mechanical properties under the rock mass construction disturbance, and realize the simulation analysis of the slope rock mass considering the MS damage. It provides a new method for quantitative evaluation of rock damage and rock mass feedback analysis. Indeed, the present study is a typical engineering case, which shows more achievement of feedback analysis of rock slope stability considering the effect of MS damage. Corresponding changes have been made in the revised text in red. 

10. Finally, the Authors should make an effort to give a stronger interest to their research, emphasizing the improvement of the treaty topic. In particular, in my opinion, the authors should better stress what is new in the proposed research. 

Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. The mentioned suggests have been described in the Conclusion. Corresponding changes have been made in the revised text in red.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper applsci-520416 is focused on a) a 3D numerical model of a rock mass deformation process, and b) establish a quantitative connection between microseismic damage and field deformation

Here below some considerations.

-      Revise English language by a professional service: some sentences are too long

-      Section 2: what is new? It is not clear why You present these formula

-      Section 3.1: add the description of the geology of the area (what are rock mass II-V in figure 2? Reference 19 is not an international reference, please specify the lithology for a non-Chinese reader) and a map of the project, otherwise lines 130-132 or acronyms like PSL2, WML2 are not clear. Moreover, text in Figure 2 is too small and really hard to read

-      Who produce the geological model mentioned at line 175? Is it shown in figure 2 or is it a different profile?

-      Who produced the experimental data shown in Table 1?

-      Move figure 3 after line 199

-      Figure 6 too small

-      Divide into two section results and discussion

-      Did You test other MS monitoring period? If no, why? If yes, are the results different or not?

-      Figure 14 is not discussed

Author Response

We thank the editors and reviewers for providing kind suggestions and we have modified the text correspondingly (in red in the revised text). 

1. Revise English language by a professional service: some sentences are too long.

Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. We have been able to change the inappropriate words and sentences. Corresponding changes have been made in the revised text in red. 5 

2.Section 2: what is new？It is not clear why you present these formula. 

Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. These formulas are intended to introduce constitutive models that consider rock fracture scales. We have improved the constitutive model considering rock fracture scale from 2D to 3D based on the reference [17]. 

[17] M. Cai; H. Horii. A constitutive model of highly jointed rock masses. Mechanics of Materials. 1992, 13, 217-246. 

3. Section 3.1: add the description of the geology of the area (what are rock mass II-V in figure 2? Reference 19 is not an international reference, please specify the lithology for a non-Chinese reader) and a map of the project, otherwise lines 130-132 or acronyms like PSL2, WML2 are not clear. Moreover, text in Figure 2 is too small and really hard to read. 

Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. The basic description of the geology of the area was made in the Sect. 3.1. 

Due to the space limit of the paper, more details of the geology can be referred to the reference [18-20].Moreover, Table 1 and 2 have been added to describe the characteristics of the geology. 

The rock mass II-V in the revised Figure 3 are labeled in the map in different colors. Moreover, more details of rock mass II-V are described in the end of Sect. 4.1. 

Reference 19 has been replaced by a new reference. 

A map of the project has been added in the revised text (see Figure 1 in the revised version). 

The acronyms like PSL2,WML2 have been explained in the revised text. 

The revised Figure 3 has been enlarged in the revised text. Corresponding changes have been made in the revised text. 

4. Who produce the geological model mentioned at line 175? Is it shown in figure 2 or is it a different profile? 

Re: The designer of the project (Power China Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited) produced the geological model based on lots of field testing. The numerical model diagram is a simplified construction model according to the revised Figure3. 6 

5. Who produced the experimental data shown in Table 1? 

Re: The designer of the project (Power China Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited) produced the experimental data based on lots of field testing. 

6. Move figure 3 after line 199 

Re: We agree. Corresponding change has been made in the revised text. 

7. Figure 6 too small 

Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. The picture is enlarged as required. 

8. Divide into two section results and discussion 

Re: We agree. The results and discussion are made separately in the revised text. 

9. Did you test other MS monitoring period? If no, why? If yes, are the results different or not? 

Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. Due to the miss of other stages of MS monitoring data, only these selected two complete data are analyzed. The data of these two periods are very representative. The analysis results of the selected data can fully verify the proposed method in the present study. 

10. Figure 14 is not discussed. 

Re: We thank the reviewer for pointing this out, we have deleted this Figure because it doesn’t make much sense for Sect. 4.4.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I read the new version of the manuscript titled: “Deformation Analysis of Large-scale Rock Slope  Considering the Effect of Microseismic Events”, authors: Linlu Dong et al. I would like to thank the authors for the hard additional work applied to improve the manuscript and also for addressing the points raised in my initial review. The present version of the manuscript is enhanced. Anyway, in the references there are yet some mistakes (see my notes in the attached file). Once the authors have carried out these ones, in my opinion, the present version of the manuscript can be considered for publication in Applied Sciences Journal.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

-      English language still need a revisionby a professional service:

-      Reference 1 and 2 are not sufficient since many other works are already published

-      Section 2: It is not still clear why You present these formulas

-      Section 3.1: the description of the geology of the area have to be put in the text and can not be done by three references (18-20), one of them in Chinese)

-      The designer of the project (Power China Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited) that produced the geological model based on lots of field testing and the experimental data based have to be added in the text as well as that the numerical model diagram is a simplified construction model according to the revised Figure3

-      Did You test other MS monitoring period? If no, why? If yes, are the results different or not?

-      If You miss “other stages of MS monitoring data”, and “only these selected two complete data are analyzed” how can You say that “The data of these two periods are very representative” or that “The analysis results of the selected data can fully verify the proposed method in the present study.”