Durability and Sustainability of Cement-Stabilized Materials Based on Utilization of Waste Materials: A Literature Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper reviews the durability and sustainable development of cement stabilized materials (CSMs) from the perspective of waste materials utilization. The manuscript is well written, and the durability of CSMs is also adequately discussed. However, from the reviewer point of view, the paper in its present form has a few minor issues to be addressed before publication. Please consider the following comments to improve the paper.

1. Manuscript needs thorough editing by someone with a technical background and good English skills.
2. Some papers are listed for reference:

https://doi.org/10.1680/jmacr.19.00194

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2020.101684

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2020.101862

3. In Table 2, the content about the effect of different industrial and mining wastes on the durability should be appropriately reduced.
4. Please check the font size in Figure 8 and Figure 12.
5. Please supplement the adverse effects of waste rubber and waste fiber on the durability of CSMs.
6. Please explain how the type, content and size of waste fiber affects the durability of fiber-reinforced CSMs.
7. Conclusion should highlight the main contribution of the paper.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

        Thank you very much for your valuable comments on our paper sustainability-1400193 " Durability and sustainability of cement stabilized materials based on utilization of waste materials: A literature review ". Your comments are really thoughtful and in-depth and I do honestly agree with most of them. The main revisions in the paper and responses to your comments show as follows:

1. Manuscript needs thorough editing by someone with a technical background and good English skills.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. The language of the manuscript was thorough modified to enhance the readability. Please refer to the revised manuscript.

2. Some papers are listed for reference:

https://doi.org/10.1680/jmacr.19.00194

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2020.101684

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2020.101862

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. The recent research is cited, please refer to the revised manuscript.

3. In Table 2, the content about the effect of different industrial and mining wastes on the durability should be appropriately reduced.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. We have modified the contents in Table 2 appropriately, please refer to page 15–16 of the revised manuscript.

4. Please check the font size in Figure 8 and Figure 12.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. We modified the font size of Figures 8 and Figures 12 to enhance visibility, please refer to page 12, and page 21 of the revised manuscript.

5. Please supplement the adverse effects of waste rubber and waste fiber on the durability of CSMs.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. The adverse effects of waste rubber and waste fiber on the durability of CSMs were supplemented, please refer to page 20, and page 22 of the revised manuscript.

6. Please explain how the type, content and size of waste fiber affects the durability of fiber-reinforced CSMs.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. The influence of technical parameters of waste fiber on the durability of fiber reinforced CSMs was supplemented in the revised manuscript, please refer to Line 649–659 of the revised manuscript.

7. Conclusion should highlight the main contribution of the paper.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. We revised the conclusions according to the main findings of the review, please refer to Line 714–757 of the revised manuscript.

Please see the attachment for the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

The subject of the article taken up by the authors is interesting and very important from the point of view of the protection of the surrounding environment and the utilization of huge amounts of waste generated. Therefore, the issue of rational waste management, as well as its practical application by scientists and technologists in various areas of our lives, is of particular importance. One of such directions is the broadly understood construction sector, which the authors presented in detail in their work. Considering the above, research work should be continued and developed in the field of further laboratory and field tests, depending on the available possibilities.

The chapter 1 (Introduction) should be slightly expanded with a broader overview of the available world literature related to the topic presented, taking into account the use of waste in the construction of airport pavement structures. An example may be a recently published work:

Wesołowski M., Włodarski P., Iwanowski P., Kowalewska A., (2021) Analysis and Assessment of the Usefulness of Recycled Plastic Materials for the Production of Airfield Geocell. Materials 2021, 14, 3557. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14133557

Additional, cited item should be added to the References.

Please make a minor correction to the following entries:

• in line 31, the abbreviation CSM can be written, as it has already been expanded in line 10;
• in the description of Figure 1, the abbreviation CSA appears for the first time, which has not been developed and explained before;
• in line 193 the abbreviation CSS appears for the first time, which has also not previously been expanded or explained;
• the description of the vertical axis (Fatigue life) in Figure 5 requires the addition of a measurement unit;
• in Table 2, in column 5 (Dosage range), it is proposed to supplement the description with the measurement unit (%).

The cited references at the end of the article require the standardization of the form of writing.

A plan for further research in the undertaken research topic should be indicated.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

        Thank you very much for your valuable comments on our paper sustainability-1400193 " Durability and sustainability of cement stabilized materials based on utilization of waste materials: A literature review ". Your comments are really thoughtful and in-depth and I do honestly agree with most of them. The main revisions in the paper and responses to your comments show as follows:

1. The chapter 1 (Introduction) should be slightly expanded with a broader overview of the available world literature related to the topic presented, taking into account the use of waste in the construction of airport pavement structures. An example may be a recently published work:

Wesołowski M., Włodarski P., Iwanowski P., Kowalewska A., (2021) Analysis and Assessment of the Usefulness of Recycled Plastic Materials for the Production of Airfield Geocell. Materials 2021, 14, 3557. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14133557

Additional, cited item should be added to the References.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. In Chapter 1 (Introduction), we analyzed the research status of waste materials in the resource utilization of CSMs and its effect on the durability of CSMs, please refer to page 1–2 of the revised manuscript.

2. Please make a minor correction to the following entries:

• in line 31, the abbreviation CSM can be written, as it has already been expanded in line 10;
• in the description of Figure 1, the abbreviation CSA appears for the first time, which has not been developed and explained before;
• in line 193 the abbreviation CSS appears for the first time, which has also not previously been expanded or explained;
• the description of the vertical axis (Fatigue life) in Figure 5 requires the addition of a measurement unit;
• in Table 2, in column 5 (Dosage range), it is proposed to supplement the description with the measurement unit (%).

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. The above entries have been modified, please refer to page 1, page 3, page 6, page 8, and page 15 the revised manuscript.

3. The cited references at the end of the article require the standardization of the form of writing.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. The cited references at the end of the article were reedited, please refer to the revised manuscript.

4. A plan for further research in the undertaken research topic should be indicated.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. The potential challenges of sustainable development of CSMs was proposed in Chapter 5. We have reedited the Chapter, and the direction of further research was indicated in entry 3–5, please refer to page 23 of the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is well-written, whereas some drawbacks should be addressed. An extended literature review is performed in terms of different aspects relating to the durability of CSM. However, the discussions are mostly performance-based, reviewing the experimental observations but without in-depth discussion over the potential mechanisms. In comparison to the tremendous summarises, the criticisms are in lack, weakening the contribution of this review. Apart from that, some other comments are given below:

• Title: Durability and sustainability of CSM materials were focused on. However, most of literature review effort was dedicated to the durability analysis, the sustainability was just slightly discussed about. The reviewer agrees that the sustainability is indeed important, the current state-of-the-art should be reviewed and criticized in a more in-depth way.
• Figure 10 on Page 18: what was the reason behind the trend?
• Section 4.4 on waster rubber: extensive studies on using the waste rubber in asphalt concrete have been found. Is it more competitive to use it in CSM than that in asphalt? The same question goes to other wastes as well.
• Section 5: as indicated before in the title, the discussions are generic and without a thorough investigation of the current state-of-the-art.
• Section 6 conclusions: In the first sentence, why it is the first choice for most developing countries? Please comment and provide a reference somewhere in the introduction.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your valuable comments on our paper sustainability-1400193 " Durability and sustainability of cement stabilized materials based on utilization of waste materials: A literature review ". Your comments are really thoughtful and in-depth and I do honestly agree with most of them. The main revisions in the paper and responses to your comments show as follows:

1. Title: Durability and sustainability of CSM materials were focused on. However, most of literature review effort was dedicated to the durability analysis, the sustainability was just slightly discussed about. The reviewer agrees that the sustainability is indeed important, the current state-of-the-art should be reviewed and criticized in a more in-depth way.

An Important and Realistic Research Topic

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. It is undeniable that the sustainable development of CSMs is an important and realistic research topic, and our research only focuses on one aspect of the topic. This paper focuses on the durability of CSMs and the sustainable development based on the utilization of waste materials. We believe that the utilization of waste materials in CSMs is an important measure to promote the sustainable development of CSMs. Clarifying the effect of the introduction of waste materials on the durability of CSMs is conducive to guiding the comprehensive utilization of waste materials and the cementless for CSMs. Therefore, we discussed the introduction methods of waste materials, the effect on durability, and the challenges in sustainable development in CSMs, and emphatically analyzed the contribution of previous studies to the sustainable development of CSMs from the impact of the introduction of waste materials on durability in Section 3–5. Please refer to the revised manuscript.

2. Figure 10 on Page 18: what was the reason behind the trend?

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. The dry shrinkage of CSRA is related to the hydration reaction of cement paste and the internal capillary pores. The density of MSWIBA is smaller than that of limestone aggregate. The introduction of MSWIBA reduces the proportion of cement paste in CSRA, and then reduces the dry shrinkage caused by hydration under drying conditions. In addition, the substitution of MSWIBA increases the number of capillary pores. The addition of excessive MSWIBA is not conducive to reducing the shrinkage strain. When the substitution rate of MSWIBA increases to 30%, the effect of the increase of capillary pores on dry shrinkage strain exceeded that of the decrease of cement paste. The reason behind the trend in Figure 10 was supplemented in the revised manuscript. Please refer to page 19 of the revised manuscript.

3. Section 4.4 on waster rubber: extensive studies on using the waste rubber in asphalt concrete have been found. Is it more competitive to use it in CSM than that in asphalt? The same question goes to other wastes as well.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. Using waste materials in CSMs and asphalt concrete can accelerate the consumption of waste materials and promote the green development of road engineering. At present, waste materials have been successfully applied in surface course, base course, and subgrade of pavements. Different structural layers bear different loading and environmental impact, and their technical requirements for raw materials are also different. The thickness of base course and subgrade is greater than that of surface course. The utilization of waste materials in CSMs can accelerate the consumption of stacked waste materials. In addition, the application of waste materials in different structural layers of the road is conducive to the construction organization and management. Therefore, we believe that compared with the application of waste materials in asphalt concrete, the utilization of waste materials in CSMs also has broad prospects.

4. Section 5: as indicated before in the title, the discussions are generic and without a thorough investigation of the current state-of-the-art.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. This section mainly discusses the challenges of sustainable development of CSMs from the perspective of the utilization of waste materials. The literature review focuses on summarizing previous studies and lacks in-depth criticisms. We will conduct in-depth research on the sustainable development of CSMs in the follow-up literature review and subject research.

5. Section 6 conclusions: In the first sentence, why it is the first choice for most developing countries? Please comment and provide a reference somewhere in the introduction.

Authors: Thanks for your careful reviewing. With the economic development of countries and regions around the world, road construction and its maintenance become more and more frequent, which also leads to a significant increase in road construction costs. Compared with asphalt concrete, the engineering cost of CSM structural layer is relatively low. From an economic point of view, the application of CSMs is conducive to controlling engineering costs. However, according to new literature review, we found that CSMs have extensively been used by various road authorities in both developing and developed countries. Therefore, we have modified the original sentence to avoid misunderstandings. Please refer to page 23 of the revised manuscript.