Experimental Study on Mechanics and Water Stability of High Liquid Limit Soil Stabilized by Compound Stabilizer: A Sustainable Construction Perspective
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this article, the Authors tested high liquid limit soil from Dongting Lake stabilized with such materials as cement, fly ash, and anionic surfactants. The authors performed strength tests as well as microstructure analysis. The test results lead to interesting conclusions concerning the impact of SO content on strength and stiffness properties. I would recommend this manuscript to publish it after small minor changes. Below are my comments and suggestions:
- The figures need to be improved in terms of readability. Mostly the issue is the font size difference which interrupts the figure reception.
- The Dongting Lake soils seem to be a local type of soil. Could you provide more information about similarities of the tested soils and others soils in China and in Asia? It would give more perspective to the applicability of your studies to the engineers.
- There are some typos, like in lines 30 where space is missing before the bracket
- You could consider using artificial neural networks to develop a model which would give a UCS or E modulus with an inorganic stabilizer and surfactants as an input.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
the manuscript proposes a soil stabilizer composed of inorganic materials such as cement, quicklime, fly ash; and sulfonated oil to evaluate the strength and water stability of those material using microscopic tests.
1- The writing level is very poor, and there are many intuitive errors. For example, in the Abstract, the sentence starts with "And"!
2- The level of details in the Abstract is not sufficient. The authors repeat themselves many times. The Abstract should clearly state the problem, method, and results. I do not see them.
3- It seems that the paper is mainly based on the results from Dongting Lake area and it may be categorized under a Case Study problem.
4- In the Introduction Section, it is not clear why the authors choose to use this specific combination?
How do you know already you this might be a solution?
Did you have any alternative to test and fail?
5- The level of novelty is not clear for me. Again, the authors should itemize one by one what is new in this manuscript compared to the published papers?
I do not see this statement.
6- Do you have a uniform soil distribution in your site? If not how to make sure your solution is effective for the entire area?
7- In many sections, the paper is a simple report of experiments (which are not new by themselves). There is little explanation on true meaning of all these tests and the results.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Well, except editing the language (to some extent), I do not see my initial comments are properly responded and reflected in the manuscript.
It is a difficult decision decision to evaluate the novelty of this manuscript when the authors are hesitant to itemize their contribution.
