Minimum Safety Factor Evaluation of Slopes Using Hybrid Chaotic Sand Cat and Pattern Search Approach
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript entitled “Minimum Safety Factor Evaluation of Slopes Using Hybrid Chaotic Sand Cat and Pattern Search Approach” has used CSCO optimization and pattern search to estimate F.Smin in single layered isotopic (soil) slopes. In general, the manuscript contains an interesting topic which is considered as one of the important stages in stability assessment; however, the following comments are requested to be addressed by the authors:
C1: The English of the paper needs to be substantially edited.
C2: Please kindly modify the title as “…..Evaluation of single layered soil slopes using ….”. The presented work only applies to homogeneous soil slopes.
C3: The necessity & novelty of the manuscript should be presented and stressed in the “Introduction” section. Use these articles:
1. Qi, C., & Tang, X. (2018). Slope stability prediction using integrated metaheuristic and machine learning approaches: a comparative study. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 118, 112-122.
2. Azarafza, M., Akgün, H., Ghazifard, A., Asghari-Kaljahi, E., Rahnamarad, J., & Derakhshani, R. (2021). Discontinuous rock slope stability analysis by limit equilibrium approaches–a review. International Journal of Digital Earth, 14(12), 1918-1941.
C3: Provide a literature of the methods developed/applied on Slope stability and F.S estimations for slope in the “Introduction” section. The use of a table to demonstrate the advantages-disadvantages of these methods can be useful. Towards the end, mention the superiority & repeat the novelty of your work. Use these articles:
1. Wang, L., Wu, C., Tang, L., Zhang, W., Lacasse, S., Liu, H., & Gao, L. (2020). Efficient reliability analysis of earth dam slope stability using extreme gradient boosting method. Acta Geotechnica, 15(11), 3135-3150.
2. Azarafza, M., Akgün, H., Feizi-Derakhshi, M. R., Azarafza, M., Rahnamarad, J., & Derakhshani, R. (2020). Discontinuous rock slope stability analysis under blocky structural sliding by fuzzy key-block analysis method. Heliyon, 6(5), e03907.
C4: Please add a subsection clearly articulating the main limitations, wider applicability of your methods, and findings in the “Discussion” section.
C5: The authors should deepen the discussion. Use these articles:
1. Moayedi, H., Osouli, A., Nguyen, H., & Rashid, A. S. A. (2021). A novel Harris hawks’ optimization and k-fold cross-validation predicting slope stability. Engineering with Computers, 37(1), 369-379.
2. Azarafza, M., Akgün, H., Ghazifard, A., & Asghari-Kaljahi, E. (2020). Key-block based analytical stability method for discontinuous rock slope subjected to toppling failure. Computers and Geotechnics, 124, 103620.
C6: I noticed that the conclusion section tends to repeat the abstract and the results. The conclusion paragraph should be short, impactful, and direct the reader to this research’s next steps and opportunities.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for the objective and thorough review of our paper. We found the comments constructive and insightful. We have carefully addressed all comments as explained in the attached response to comments, and we revised the manuscript accordingly. All changes made to address the reviewer’s comments are highlighted in the revised manuscript and can be easily identified.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper attempts to provide a new joint optimization method and apply it to the search for the minimum factor of safety of slopes. Sand Cat Swarm Optimization (SCSO) is a new optimization method proposed in 2022. What kind of performance will it show when applied to the search for the minimum safety factor of slopes? This is a very interesting topic. Not only this, the author also presents an improved version of SCSO method, namely Chaotic Sand Cat and Pattern Search Approach (CSCPS) by coupling it with chaos theory, and pattern search algorithm. It should be said that this paper is very interesting. However, there are still many problems before I can recommend it. General and specific comments are given below.
1. Please use the term ”Morgenstern-Price” because it is well fixed expression.
2. Line 87. “A balance of exploitation and exploration must be maintained throughout the search operation to achieve optimum performance utilizing any optimization technique.” How to define exploitation and exploration?
3. In the literature of searching the minimum factor of safety of slopes, there are also many adopting bionic algorithms, and this paper needs to analyze them in the background research. Such as particle swarm optimization, ant colony algorithm, etc.
4. The author needs to clearly point out what is the failure mechanism of the sliding surface assumed in this paper? Is it a circular arc sliding surface or a non-circular sliding surface? In addition to giving the minimum safety factor in the form of a table, the corresponding sliding surfaces should also be given. It is recommended to display it graphically to show the evolution of the sliding surfaces.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for the objective and thorough review of our paper. We found the comments constructive and insightful. We have carefully addressed all comments as explained in the attached response to comments, and we revised the manuscript accordingly. All changes made to address the reviewer’s comments are highlighted in the revised manuscript and can be easily identified.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper entitled “Minimum Safety Factor Evaluation of Slopes Using Hybrid Chaotic Sand Cat and Pattern Search Approach” develops an efficient evolutionary hybrid optimization technique based on chaotic sand cat optimization (CSCO) and pattern search (PS) for the evaluation of the minimum safety factor of earth slopes under static and earthquake loading conditions. To improve the sand cat optimization approach's exploration ability while avoiding premature convergence, the chaotic sequence is implemented. In my opinion, the authors have made a good work here, but the results are not well interpreted and presented. The research outcome may be suitable for the audience of sustainability. The issues that need to be assessed by the authors are listed below.
1- Please add some quality results at the end of the abstract.
2- More significant contributions need to be added to the manuscript and research to be accepted as a journal paper in the revised version. Lack of contribution and novelty. Please enhance the revised paper significantly with new contributions and novelty and develop it accordingly.
3- It seems you can explain more about the gap and introduce the importance of your research and contributions at the end of the introduction part.
4- The interpretation of the results is poor. Discussing the results can make the paper more attractive.
5- “Conclusions”: To draw all these conclusions, one does not need to carry out any study. Authors should try to quantify their results and rewrite the conclusions.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for the objective and thorough review of our paper. We found the comments constructive and insightful. We have carefully addressed all comments as explained in the attached response to comments, and we revised the manuscript accordingly. All changes made to address the reviewer’s comments are highlighted in the revised manuscript and can be easily identified.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have complied with my revision suggestions.
Author Response
The authors are glad that the reviewer is satisfied with the revised manuscript and has no additional comments. We would like to that the reviewer for the thorough and objective comments that enhanced the revised manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper attempts to provide a new joint optimization method and apply it to the search for the minimum factor of safety of slopes. In this round, the authors did make four major revisions to the manuscript. I noticed that the quality of the paper has improved significantly, especially the level of detail of the work in Table 1 is impressive. The Table 1 is newly added and provides a very good tracking for the field of slope stability and other geotechnical engineering optimization problems. Considering the novelty of Sand Cat Swarm Optimization (SCSO) method, it will bring higher citations to the journal sustainability. In addition, there is one problem to remind the authors.
Regarding the optimization problem focused on slope stability, the following reference demonstrates the mathematical essence of the slope stability problem from the perspective of computational complexity can be for the consideration:
[1]. Tang, H.M., Liu, X., Xiong, C.R., Wang, Z.Y. & Eldin, M. 2016. Proof of Nondeterministic Polynomial-Time Complete Problem for Soil Slope-Stability Evaluation. International Journal of Geomechanics, 16, 12, doi: 10.1061/(asce)gm.1943-5622.0000595.
Author Response
The authors are glad that the reviewer found that the quality of the paper has improved significantly after the previous revision, that the level of detail in Table 1 was found impressive, and that the Sand Cat Swarm Optimization (SCSO) method was found novel. As recommended, the authors have added the reference suggested by the reviewer, which demonstrates the mathematical essence of the slope stability problem from the perspective of computational complexity.
