Wood in the Construction of Forest Roads on Poor-bearing Road Subgrades

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript deals with the characteristics of wood to improve the bearing capacity of forest roads. This is an important issue for timber transportation. However, this manuscript has some drawbacks. More information is needed to give forest road engineers more practical help.

1. Introduction
There are several ways to improve the bearing capacity of forest roads (e.g. geosynthetics, aggregate). What are the advantages of the wood-based methods covered in this study when constructing forest roads using wood?

2. Results and discussion
In 126-143, Are the test sections the Results and discussion? I think it's better to move this part to the materials and methods section.

What is hazard class 4, in line 140-141?

What is the road's period of persisting, estimated construction cost, and road surface bearing capacity (CBR) using the wood tested in this study?

Author Response

In improving the text we considered all the comments and suggestions contained in the review.  

1.    Introduction

We have added some information about wood (adventives of wood) compared to other materials using in roads construction (line: 42-45).  

2.    Results and discussion.

We have moved description and characteristics of selected study plots from “Results and Discussion” to “Material and Methods” and we explained what hazard class 4 is (in the new line 97).

Analyzes regarding the estimation of wooden forest road construction and their technical specifications (e.g. surface bearing capacity) and useful life of these roads were the subject of another publication [cited publication no 12]. We have added a relevant comment in the summary of the manuscript (line: 289-291).

Reviewer 2 Report

 Minor clarifications:
1. It is not clear from the description how the samples were taken from the forest road?
2. In conclusions of researches it is necessary to pay attention to various years of construction (reconstruction) of the road. The results obtained may depend on the time of operation of the structure made of wood.

Author Response

In improving the text we considered all the comments and suggestions contained in the review.  

1. We have corrected the description of how we collect wood samples from the forest roads (line: 102-103 in the “Material and Methods”)

2. We have added the comment about the impact of time. The time of use of wood on the forest road. (line: 292-296 at the end of the discussion of our research results).

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript partially corrected, can be published.