Nondestructive Measurement of the Water Content in Building Materials by Single-Sided NMR-MOUSE

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is of rather poor originality and quality. Single-sided NMR-MOUSE has more than 20 years of experience and use. This do not mean that we know everything about this technique, that actually is not widely used.

I would like to propose to the Authors two simple reflections: 

a) The Introduction of this paper should better describe the aim of the proposed research and its innovative content, because such measurements and the linear correlation of WC with signal T has already been proved and assessed with errors and a better methodology, in past times and in several cited papers, for similar materials in laboratory experiments;

b) the Authors state in their conclusions that "The NMR signal intensity of each of the four building materials is strongly linearly correlated with the WC. The coefficients in the fitted correlations for the four building materials are not very different, indicating similar correlations between the NMR signal intensity and WC for all four building materials."  What do the AA mean with "The coefficient are not very different"?  Which is the error of the measurements for each considered material? Wich can be the problems or limits of these measurements? Did they try to compare this method with others? What problems can arise with in field measuerments? 

In my opinion the AA should think again to the set-up of their experimental research and introduce, for example, a testing in real conditions that ccould be really corroborated by the experimental worrk in the Laboratory.  Re-think to the global idea of the work..

English should be improved beacuse there are several sentences and paragraph that are not clear eneough; structure and wording should be revised.

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewing our manuscript! The authors appreciate your comments and insightful suggestions to our manuscript. The authors are very grateful for your hard work in giving us so many good advises, which greatly improved the quality of this paper. Your comments are also very helpful for the future researches in relevant field. According to your comments, the authors made revisions. The detailed point to point responses to your comments are listed in follows.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article entitled “Nondestructive measurement of the water content in building materials by single-sided NMR-MOUSE” brings a relevant contribution to the water content quantification in porous materials in a cleaner and non-destructive NMR method than conventional thermogravimetry. Because it is a non-destructive technique and relatively easy to perform, it is possible to observe a factual sustainability method of water content quantification. Then some modifications are presented for better data exposition.

 

In introduction section, line 47, authors use the expression “In past few years” and this expression incomes a very close past. However, some references cited shortly afterwards to elucidate the state-of-the-art of the work are dated between 2003 and 2011 and may be able to be updated. Perhaps it would be interesting to allocate the information contained in this paragraph in a table showing the authors, type of NMR and purpose of each.

 

In section 2.2.2 the authors say that the samples were submerged for a period, and it is interesting to note the submersion time.

 

Figures 4 to 8 could be allocated as supplementary material and data only presented as available in Table 2.

 

In Conclusion, line 275, ^oC is formatted differently from the others.

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewing our manuscript! The authors appreciate your comments and insightful suggestions to our manuscript. The authors are very grateful for your hard work in giving us so many good advises, which greatly improved the quality of this paper. Your comments are also very helpful for the future researches in relevant field. According to your comments, the authors made revisions. The detailed point to point responses to your comments are listed in follows.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have carried out an interesting research work that can be taken into consideration for the journal if the following minor comments are solved:

It would be advisable not to use abbreviations in the Abstract, as well as to add some numerical value referring to the results obtained.

The introduction is clear and concise, with a high and updated number of references. Perhaps it would be better to highlight the objective of the work at the end of the document.

Line 96: 28 days

Line 102: 40 x 40 x 15 mm

Add the reference standards for the preparation of the samples.

The graphs presented are of poor quality and barely legible.

The discussion of the results is very poor and needs to be improved and complemented by other research. In addition to including the implications derived from the research work carried out.

It is noted that some parts have been poorly translated and a general review of the language is recommended.

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewing our manuscript! The authors appreciate your comments and insightful suggestions to our manuscript. The authors are very grateful for your hard work in giving us so many good advises, which greatly improved the quality of this paper. Your comments are also very helpful for the future researches in relevant field. According to your comments, the authors made revisions. The detailed point to point responses to your comments are listed in follows.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has not been substantially revised. Only minor changes have been done through out all the text. The AA didn't reflect on the comments, although they thoroughly thanked for the suggestions. They posted a sort of "non- answer" and repeated their concept.

Comment 1 of the previous review remain valid, in my opinion. While the answer of the AA is not satifactory. They have written: "The innovation of this paper is to obtain quantitative equations for the NMR signal intensity and water content of four common porous building materials and to demonstrate that the errors of the equations are very small" , but such empirical equations (a linear correlation btween WC and NMR Signal intensity) on porous materials was already known, and demonstrated in several cited papers. It is clear that the four employed porous construction materials (that show very different characteristics) are only examples, and, therfore, the obtained intercept and slope are not of general value, but depend on the specific type of materials and on different parameters; the AA do not indicate which parmeters and how affect the equation. They have tested 4 materials and do not explain even the criteria used for their selection; and affirm that the obtained parameter are "similar"; in the Discussion they affirm (line 237-243) "The high correlation and good fit between the NMR signal intensities and WC of the 238 four materials demonstrate the feasibility of the single-sided NMR technique for measur-239 ing the water content of porous building materials, and also illustrate the generality of the 240 commonly used water content equations for these four porous building materials, which 241 is of great significance in the practical application of NMR techniques for measuring water 242 content and can greatly improve the work efficiency." As already written, this kind of conclusion (in the discussion paragraph) was already known; the method has been already largely exploited in different real situation and measurements and the "feasibility of the single-sided NMR technique", already assessed. The single-sided NMR technique was developed essentially for this type of application. The problem is that we don't have a general equation, or a Table of prameters to be used in the different type of masonries...

Finally the AA added a couple of sentences (line 270-279) that are ridicolous, because the disadvantage of the drying method that requires sampling, is stating the obvious and the discovery of the wheel. 

My opinion has not been changed after the revision. This paper is not deserving publication in this Journal in the present form.