Development of Self-Cured Sustainable Concrete Using Local Water-Entrainment Aggregates of Vesicular Basalt
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Compared to the first version, the revised version of the manuscript was appropriately improved. Only a few comments before publication as follows:
1- Abstract: Lines 9-17: Please summarize the general sentences and only concentrate on the experimental works of this study.
2- Self-curing or internal curing? Please use only one specific term.
3- Please check the figure numbering in the manuscript. For instance, Fig. 3 should be Fig. 1. All figure numbers should be checked in the text and figure captions.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript presents an experimental study to investigate the effect of self-curing method on the compressive strength and durability of concrete using water entrainment aggregates of vesicular basalt. For this, several batches of concrete were prepared. The variables study were the water cement ratio (0.35 and 0.5), the curing method (water curing, air curing, membrane curing and self-curing) and the type of concrete specimens (cubes and cylinders). The specimens were tested under uniaxial-compression at different ages (3, 7 and 28 days). The durability of concrete was assessed using sorptivity test, water permeability test and BET surface area test.
The manuscript presents and describes the used materials, the concrete mixes and the testing procedures. The results of the tests are presented and discussed in light of the variable studies. The microstructure characterization of the concretes is also presented and discussed. Among other conclusions, it is concluded that self-cured concrete incorporating water entrainment aggregates of vesicular basalt provides good strength and durability characteristics, when compared with the other studied curing methods.
The topic of the manuscript is very interesting since the self-curing method can contribute for more sustainable concretes, with higher strengths and durability.
This new version of the manuscript constitutes the revised and improved version of a previous one submitted to the same journal. When compared to the previous version, the organization of the new manuscript was revised. Several parts of the manuscript were also improved and updated, namely: the introduction section, the literature review and references, the description of the experimental methodology and results. I consider that the authors have made a great effort to substantially improve the manuscript.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
Although it has already been extensively re-edited, this document still needs a complete revision in terms of English language. Listed below are just some of the major fixes, but many more are needed. A full review by a native speaker is recommended.
Line 25
“The study concludes that addition of water entrainment aggregates in the concrete reduces the water permeability, results in finer pore structure of the concrete, increased the quality and durability of concrete.”
The Authors used both “present tense” and “past tense” in this sentence. Please check verb tenses.
Line 52
“… and can be act as an admixture to self-healing concrete …”
The Authors probably mean “… and can act as an admixture for self-healing concrete …”.
Line 116
“The study on durability related properties of concrete using the self-curing method is due to among others, by Ibrahim et al. [55] on concrete under dry-arid weather conditions, by Bentz et al. [56] on concrete resistance to sulfate attack, by Hasholt and Jensen [57] on concrete chloride migration, by Maruyama and Teramoto [58] on the minimizing of thermal expansion coefficient in siliceous material and by Beyene et al. [59] on mitigation to minimize alkali-silica reaction damage.”
Review the grammar of this sentence and shorten it.
Line 155
“Detail experimental program …”
The Authors probably mean “Detailed experimental program …”
Section 2.1.2
Since the use of Water Entrainment Aggregates for Self-curing is the core of the paper, a reader unfamiliar with materials from the Northwestern region of Saudi Arabia would expect a more detailed description of this type of aggregate. Provide more information and consider adding one or more figures.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
This paper studies a method for curing concrete based on vesicular basalt as aggregate. The study of different types of concrete curing is interesting, but this type of concrete cannot be defined as "sustainable" and therefore, the interest for this journal is questioned. The sustainability of concrete is much more related to the materials used and, above all, to the amount of cement used. In no case can a concrete with such a high cement content be considered sustainable.
The study on this subject to be significant should have contemplated a test of concrete SHRINKAGE with the different types of curing. Without further studies, this research is poor to be scientifically sound.
MAIN ISSUE: English needs to be completely revised in order to revise the document. It may not contain typographical errors, but it is a collection of grammatical and lexical inconsistencies, which make the manuscript unintelligible. The accredited review of the document by a native speaker would be essential to issue a favorable opinion, since on the previous occasions, this issue has been ignored repeatedly.
- References 1, 2 and 3 and their correspondent descriptions (lines 53-58) do not match the subject and should be removed.
- The explanation of the concept “water entrainment aggregates” is missing and it is essential that it appear in the first part of the introduction.
- The first time SAP appears, there is no explanation for this acronym, but the second time.
- In the titles, sometimes commas appear instead of points (e.g. 2.1,3)
- Physical properties of the “ingredients” –not usual definition- (section 2.1.1), would be much clear in tables than described.
- The water entrainment aggregates should be physically and chemically characterized in a deeper way; section 2.1.2 is really poor.
- Section “3.11.2 Water Permeability…” is incorrectly numbered.
- Compressive test (2.2.1) and water permeability (2.2.2.2) are not cited along with their standards… Have they not followed any?
- figures 1 and 2 are blurred
- The different curing methods, although it may seem obvious, they should be further explained.
- the x-axis label in figure 7 seems to have an error
- The conclusions should be fully rewritten (better in bullet points) to summarize the main findings of the study. Now they are not specific.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper has been revised according to the comments and suggestions of the reviewer. Its quality has been improved and it can be accepted for publication in the Journal.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
The authors have taken into account my considerations, with the exception of the one related to the certification of the proofreading by a native speaker, a matter that I now leave up to the editors.
Regarding the rest of the comments, I would just like to point out that when I mentioned that the characteristics of the materials would be clearer in the form of a table, I was not referring to those of the cement (in fact, I think that considering it is a commercial cement, they could even be eliminated). I was referring to those of the aggregates and additives, which are still poor.
Author Response
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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
The premise is that the constant language flaws make this document very difficult to understand.
The introduction would need a complete rewrite. Table 1, for example, in which a lot of studies are cited, without specifying what is said in them, does not add much. The introduction needs to be revised so that the reader can understand what has been done in the field and what challenges still exist.
There is a need to clarify what "Water Entrainment Aggregates" are. Surprisingly, this explanation is missing.
This reviewer does not understand the use of numerous terms in the document that are little used, such as the one above, and many others. The most curious case is the title "self-cured concrete". The most scientifically widespread term (with 1300 entries in the databases, compared to 20 entries for "self-cured") is "self-healing concrete". Is this a different concept? If so, please clarify. If not, please explain why there is not any reference in your literature revision to "self-healing concretes".
In summary, this reviewer needs a complete revision of this manuscript in terms of linguistic expression and background in order to review it.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
The topic of the paper is interesting. Unfortunately, the quality of the document suffers from several language errors. Note, in particular, the repeated use of singular terms instead of the corresponding plural terms. Some other comments follow below.
Line 256
Replace “lo-cating” with “locating”.
Line 258
Replace “prede-fined” with “predefined”.
Lines 260-261
“The test set-up for sorptivity test is demonstrated in Figure 1”
Probably, this is Figure 4.
Line 263
Replace “con-crete” with “concrete”.
Figures 7b and 8b
These figures have an anomalous behavior. How is it possible that some strengths at 7-28 days are lower than the corresponding strengths at 3-7 days? Have these values been swapped? If not, this behavior deserves more in-depth analysis and proper comments.
Lines 334-337
“The highest compressive strength of concrete is obtained for external water curing along with internal curing condition while air curing or concrete with no curing, results in reduction of the concrete strength as expected from the cement hydration characteristics under such conditions”
Unclear sentence. Please rephrase it.
Line 340
Replace “mem-brane” with “membrane”.
Lines 343-354
“The impact of water-cement (w/c) ratio and surface area /volume (S/V) ratio on compressive strength with respect to control concrete (water curing condition) on internal curing of concrete are shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8.”
Unclear sentence. Please rephrase it.
Figure 10
The captions appear to have been swapped. Are the authors sure that the 50000x magnification is on the left and 3000x on the right? In fact, the degree of uniformity of the figures on the left decreases from top to bottom, while the text states the exact opposite. Is it possible that the order of the figures is not correct?
Line 394
Replace “proper-ties” with “properties”.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
The authors present a paper on the development of a self-cured sustainable concrete using local water entrainment aggregates of vesicular basalt.
The paper has some problems with the English language. It would be essential for the text to be fully revised in this context.
The authors mix several concepts in the same paper, namely: self-cured concrete, sustainable concrete and the use of local aggregates. In addition to the aforementioned one of the mixes has silica fume and the basalt vesicular represents only 10% (of what?).
How is it possible to produce a sustainable concrete with 500 kg/m3 of cement?
It is all very confusing! The concepts are all mixed up!
The idea of studying different types of curing methods is very interesting. However, it is a topic with many published works and results. The mixes chosen for the study of the curing method do not seem the most suitable and are anything but sustainable! That is, the choice of the 3 mixes to carry out the study is not noticeable! Why these mixes and these proportions?
Section 4.1 presents a series of SEM images. The utility of these images in the presented work is not perceived. Does the analysis of these images contribute in any way to the analysis of the studied properties?
In general, the paper is too confusing, not well organized and has some inconsistencies that, in my opinion, make its potential interest for publication unfeasible.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
General Comment
The manuscript presents an experimental study to investigate the effect of self-curing method on the compressive strength and durability of concrete using water entrainment aggregates of vesicular basalt. For this, several batches of concrete were prepared. The variables study were the water cement ratio (0.35 and 0.5), the curing method (water curing, air curing, membrane curing and self-curing) and the type of concrete specimens (cubes and cylinders). The specimens were tested under uniaxial-compression at different ages (3, 7 and 28 days). The durability of concrete was assessed using sorptivity test, water permeability test and BET surface area test.
The manuscript presents and describes the used materials, the concrete mixes and the testing procedures. The results of the tests are presented and discussed in light of the variable studies. The microstructure characterization of the concretes is also presented and discussed. Among other conclusions, it is concluded that self-cured concrete incorporating water entrainment aggregates of vesicular basalt provides good strength and durability characteristics, when compared with the other studied curing methods.
The topic of the manuscript is very interesting since the self-curing method can contribute for more sustainable concretes, with higher strengths and durability.
I made some comments in order to improve the manuscript. The authors should take the comments into account and revise their manuscript.
Specific Comment 1
The manuscript must be entirely reviewed in order to improve the reading and the check spelling, and also to correct several typos. I do not present examples because they are many.
Specific Comment 2
The graphs presented in Figures 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9 are hard to read. Please increase the size and quality of the graphs. Also, it would be better to place the pairs of graphs on top of each other, rather than side by side.
Specific Comment 3
The introductory text of section 3.11 (page 7, lines 220 to 246) should be merged in the corresponding subsections 3.11.1, 3.11.2 and 3.11.3 in order to avoid the repetition of information.
Specific Comment 4
Section 4.2 (and not Section 4.1 at page 12…) should permute with section 4.3. It is usual to present the microstructure characterization at the end of the results and discussions.
Specific Comment 5
How do your results compare with the results of previous similar studies? Section 4 should incorporate additional brief discussions on this. This would increase the quality of your article.
Author Response
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Reviewer 5 Report
This paper presents interesting results for using locally available water entrainment aggregates of vesicular basalt to improve concrete mechanical and durability characteristics. However, major revision is necessary before publishing the work as follows:
1- Abstract: Please explain more details regarding the experimental process instead of general sentences. Also, add more quantitative results at the end of the abstract.
2- Page 1, line 43: What do you mean self-healing? Does this water entrainment aggregate gradually releases water to hydrate unhydrated cement particles within the matrix?
3- Self- curing or internal curing? Please use only one specific term throughout the manuscript.
4- Page 4, lines 267-270: 3 days for water curing for concrete made of water entrainment aggregates? Please add a reference for this process (standard).
5- Table 4: There are no details for reference mixture with normal aggregate. This table should show the details of all mixtures.
6- Section 3.9: Slump flow is not high enough. It seems that more energy was required to pour the concrete mixtures with these low slump flow values within the molds. This makes problems to compact the specimens, which can affect the results. Please justify.
7- Figs 1-3: As different repetitions were considered for concrete compressive tests, please add error bars to all figures throughout the manuscript.
8- Section 3.5 and Table 4: Please mention details of curing compound (type and dosage) in Table 4 for all mixtures. All mixtures details should be mentioned in a table (like Table 4) to compare the concrete compositions.
9- Figs 1-3 and section 3.10:
The reviewer strongly recommends transferring all results to section 4 (results and discussion). Section 2 or 3 only provides explanations regarding materials and the test process (set-ups and details). Also, the section numbering is not accurate. It should be as follows:
1. Introduction
2. Experimental Methodology
2.1 Materials and Concrete Mixtures
2.1.1 Cement
2.1.2 Normal Aggregates
2.1.3 Water Entrainment Aggregates
2.1.4 Water
2.1.5 Curing Compound
2.1.6 Silica Fume
2.1.7 Super plasticizers
2.1.8 Concrete composition and Concrete Workability
2.2 Test set-ups
2.2.1 Concrete Compressive Strength
2.2.2 Concrete Durability Properties
2.2.2.1 Water Sorptivity (Permeability under Capillary action) Test
2.2.2.2 Water Permeability under Pressure Test
2.2.2.3 Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) Surface Area and Pore Size Test
3. Results and Discussion
…
…
…
…
10- Page 8, Line 402: Please use the complete name of “BET”.
11- Fig. 4: Please add error bars.
12- Section 3.11.3 (Page 11, line 533): based on which standard?
13- Page 11 (lines 550-551): Please remove the sentence “Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted from the perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses.”
14- General comments regarding internal curing:
How much does releasing water rate from pre-soaked aggregates can affect the results? Because using 3 days in water and then using the self-curing capacity of mixture makes a question regarding the ability of an aggregate to release water or similar mechanism.
15- Fig. 8 (b): Please be more specific for details in the caption. Self-cured concrete of which specimen?
16- Conclusion (Page 16, line 710), sentence ” The concrete strength and the rate of strength development of the self-cured concrete are enhanced due to improvement in the cement hydration process.”
The results do not precisely obtain this as different mixtures were used. Please explain more details regarding the results (qualitative and quantitative) in the conclusion.
17- Please provide one paragraph before the section conclusion to explain the limitations of the current study and suggest works for future studies.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate the effort of the authors to answer my comments, but the changes are not enough to reconsider the article. The experimental plan may be complete, but it still needs to review the introduction and language, and a thorough review of the study of the state of the art by the authors. This cannot be done in one week.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
The reviewer acknowledges the effort made by the authors to improve the quality of the manuscript. However, the paper still needs extensive revision of the English language to improve reading. Furthermore, while the Introduction section has been adequately developed, the Sections describing the test methodology and results are often dismissed too hastily, without adequate in-depth analysis. In particular, the reviewer recommends avoiding Subsections shorter than five lines. If these Subsections cannot be developed further, they should be merged with others of the same level to form a single one.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
In my opinion, the authors do not answer the main questions asked. We continue to have an allegedly sustainable concrete with 500 kg/m3 of cement. this fact is not explained and in my opinion it does not make any sense.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
I received the revised version of the Manuscript with ID sustainability-1173666 and title “Development of Self-cured Sustainable Concrete using Local Water Entrainment Aggregates of Vesicular Basalt”. The authors have incorporated the requested corrections and also all my suggestions to improve the article. I consider that the revised article submitted by the authors can be accepted to be published.
Author Response
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Reviewer 5 Report
The authors appropriately improved the structure of the manuscript. However, as a final comment, please put a column in Table 4 to show the mixture name.
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
My opinion about the article remains the same as in the previous revision.
