Control of Early-Age Cracking in Super-Long Mass Concrete Structures

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Autors,
I enjoyed reading this paper and found the results interesting. The introduction is extensive, clear and frames the need for this research well. The literature review is clear and the citations are well suited to the research topic. The methods used in the paper are experimental methods. The methods are appropriate for the work and clearly described. The analysis of the results is sufficient. The authors report the outcomes and provide analysis of the results. Although there is no separate discussion section the article has the correct structure. The discussion was combined with the presentation of the results and this is a good idea.  English language and style are fine. Reference to figures and tables has been done correctly. The figures and tables are clear. I only have a few minor remarks:

1) There should be a space in the text before quotations.
2) There is an invalid figure number on line 134.
3) Please enlarge figure 1 and 3.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your careful review and constructive suggestions. I have made great changes in the manuscript according to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The present work offers important and interesting results regarding the evolution of temperature and strain throughout a super-long mass concrete structure. Also, three methods to control temperature and strain are also presented. Aside some small observations, the paper can be published as is.

Abstract: ok, and:

- Lines 9-10: please rephrase, the repetition of the word “different” should be avoided;

Introduction: ok

Project background: ok, and:

- Line 134: please use “images” instead of “photos”;

Results and discussion: ok, and:

- lines 341-342: please rephrase;

Conclusions: ok, and:

- the numbering of conclusions starts with number 2. Also, beside numbering, letters are used to notate conclusions. Please use only one method.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your careful review and constructive suggestions. I have made great changes in the manuscript according to your comments.

 

Point 1: L9-10: Please rephrase, the repetition of the word “different” should be avoided.

Response 1: The word “different” is changed to “various”, please see details in L10.

 

Point 2: L134: Please use “images” instead to “photos”

Response 2:The description of Figure 6 was removed, please see details in L148.

 

Point 3: L341-324: please rephrase.

Response 3:The hydration heat can be effectively controlled by the post-cooling method, please see details in L360-361.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The article is very interesting.

Authors should add more references related to this topic...

Relevant references related to this topic as  followings :

1. Early-Age Cracking of Lightweight Mass Concrete,  DOI: 10.14359/51719082

2. Analysis of Cracking Risk in Early Age Mass Concrete with Different Aggregate Types
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877705817327649

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your careful review and constructive suggestions. I have made great changes in the manuscript according to your comments.

The two relevant references are added in Section1，please see details in L52-60.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for submitting your paper to the MDPI Sustainability journal. The paper is presenting an interesting result but somehow confusing, as it is a lack between the concepts of early cracks and strain temperature effect on early cracks in mass concrete structure

 

I attach the following comments.

   

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your careful review and constructive suggestions. I have made great changes in the manuscript according to your comments.

 

Point 1：The use of three approaches to decrease the early cracking phenomena should be explained and well described，with a great conception with state of the art. I propose a table to present this comment.

Response 1：Approaches to decrease early-age cracking in concrete structure are shown in Table.4,  please see details in Section 2.3.4.

 

Point 2: the second comment is the effect of the strain-temperature relation, is not well explained or why this could be an indicator for the early cracks, please explain and this could give more value to your work.

Response 2: Early-age cracking occurs in concrete structure due to temperature differences and stress development, please see details in L116-120.

 

Point 3: Check all figures some of them not really well explained or interpreted. And explain with a table different

Response 3: The vibrating wire strain meter is a conventional strain meter, when deleting pictures, forget to delete the relevant text description. so the description of Figure 6 was removed, please see details in L148.

 

Point 4: Table is necessary to show all sensors before all graphs, to help readers to understand different colours and number. Can you homogenise the location of the sensors and numbers from benginning?

Response 4:The identification in Figure 4 was modified as required.

 

Point 5: In conclusion, I cannot see any validation results? Will be interesting to describe or at least add something relevant to validation approaches. Re-write conclusion with better reflection of the results.

Response 5:The validation results in conclusion was modified as required, please see details in Section 4.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx