Application of Temperature and Process Duration as a Method for Predicting the Mechanical Properties of Thermally Modified Timber
, Atif Hodžić 2, Davor Kržišnik 3, Damir Hodžić 2, Mohsen Bahmani 4, Marko Petrič 3 and Miha Humar 3,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Point 1: Please elaborate “seven phases”. (Line 73)
Point 2: Please specify the meaning of δ. (Figure 1a)
Point 3: Can you try to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the two models (stochastic model and genetic model)? Which model is more suitable? (Line 295, results and discussion)
Point 4: Table 1 is obviously different from others. It has a formatting problem.
Author Response
See attached file
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic of the meanuscript is interesting though there are significant issues that should be addressed by the authors towards its improvement. Given that thermal treatment is a topic that has been discussed for several years, the state-of-the-art description in introduction of this work is really poor concerning the changes of wood properties after modification. In line 35 you referred to improvement of properties and put a parenthesis with disadvantages of treated wood. Please present them in a more clarified way. In lines 36-37, in which cases could thermally treated wood be used in outdoor applications? In line 49, you refer that "thermal modification process is characterized by various parameters, including temperature, wood density, and residence time", but you probably mean "is influenced/affected by". In line 52, probably wanted to use the word "through" istead of "in"?, since the meaning changes due to the use of wrong prepositions. Please, make a check in the whole text for syntactical errors. In line 53, you should clarify which are these standards. The sentence 57-59 is not really clear, you rather rephrase to clarify the meaning. In line 61, maybe the word "products" is missing there? What do you mean by "thermally modified parameters"? (probably parameters of wood thermal treatment). Among others, I would recommend to the authors to find useful information and relevant knowledge from these two recent papers (among others): https://www.drvnaindustrija.com/site/assets/files/1780/drv_ind_vol_68_3_icel.pdf and http://www.centrumdp.sk/wr/02/16.pdf
In materials and methods you should provide in the beginning crucial information missing such as the exact species used as raw materials in this study (and not in the end of materials-methods). How many different species, how many trunks used/species, was the timber purchased by the market? In case you implemented new loggings, which were the ages of the trees? did you include both sapwood and heartwood? provide details for the vacuum reactor (manufacturer, model)? Where did you base the choice of the specific durations and temperatures? (please provide this information in the text). In lines 75-76, you use present form, while the previous sentences were written using past form (follow a uniform pattern). The scientific latin names of species should be italized. In line 81, "was" to be changed into "were". Why did you provide "bulk" density and not density of wood? In 140-141, the sentences are not apparent. In table 3, please provide also the respective standard deviation of the presented mean strength values.
Even though the figures of results are very well-prepared and useful, the part of the presentation and discussion of the results are quite short and needs to be enriched with comparisons to previous results (if there is any) and in parallel, provide the meaning of these findings for the utilization of thermal wood in future and the significance of your work will be highlighted in this way. In 326, please correct grammatical error concerning the passive voice.
Author Response
See attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Indeed the authors have implemented several changes in the manuscript towards the improvement of their work quality.
In bibliography section, you should provide DOI numbers where possible. In reference no 34, the names should be corrected to: Kamperidou, V.; Barboutis, I.; Vasiliou, V.
