Review Reports - CFD Analysis and Optimization of a Plastic Greenhouse with a Semi-Open Roof in a Tropical Area

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This work could be reconsidered after carefully addressing the following comments:

1) Please avoid using abbreviations in the Abstract section, like CFD, ME, RE

2) The novelty of the research should be more highlighted.

3) Some real pictures of the experimental setup should be added to Section 2.1.

4) In the governing equations. the format of parameters should be selected carefully. The bold format is acceptable just for vectors. Please revise the equations.

5) There are 21 equations, many factors and abbreviations. A nomenclature must be added.

6) According to Table (2), there are three materials in the computational domain. The positions of plastic film and soil are unknown. It is highly suggested that their positions be shown in a schematic.

7) Please double-check the language of the manuscript.

8) More physical explanations should be added for the contours.

9) It is highly suggested a figure including 3D streamline with contours would be added.

10) The differences between the plotted 2D contours should be presented obviously.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Please double-check the language of the manuscript.

Author Response

Summary

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. We have revised our paper according to your comments. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revision in the re-submitted files.

Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments 1: Please avoid using abbreviations in the Abstract section, like CFD, ME, RE.

Response 1: Fully followed the comment and edited the Abstract section in revised edition.

Comments 2: The novelty of the research should be more highlighted.

Response 2: Thank you for the observation, the novelty of this paper is to combine the real experimental data with numerical simulation, and adopt a simple simulation method to study the thermal environment and air flow under natural ventilation. According to the simulation results, the optimization measures were put forward: the top window was added to improve the ventilation rate and temperature uniformity in the greenhouse without any mechanical ventilation equipment. This conclusion is helpful to save energy and increase efficiency in tropical greenhouses.

Comments 3: Some real pictures of the experimental setup should be added to Section 2.1.

Response 3: Fully followed the comment, and the real picture of experimental greenhouse was added to Section 2.1 in line 87 of revised edition.

Comments 4: In the governing equations, the format of parameters should be selected carefully. The bold format is acceptable just for vectors. Please revise the equations

Response 4: Thank you for the observation.

Comments 5: There are 21 equations, many factors and abbreviations. A nomenclature must be added.

Response 5: Fully followed the comment, and the table of Nomenclature was added in line 25 of revised edition.

Comments 6: According to Table (2), there are three materials in the computational domain. The positions of plastic film and soil are unknown. It is highly suggested that their positions be shown in a schematic.

Response 6: Fully followed the comment. The positions of plastic film and soil were shown in edited Fig.4.

Comments 7: Please double-check the language of the manuscript.

Response 7: Fully followed the comment.

Comments 8: More physical explanations should be added for the contours.

Response 8: Fully followed the comment.

Comments 9: It is highly suggested a figure including 3D streamline with contours would be added.

Response 9: highly admitted with your suggestion, but including 3D streamline with contours in the figure requires further modeling, and considering that the revision time is very short, it is no longer allowed to supplement experiments. But still thanks for the suggestion, we must follow this suggestion in the follow-up topic, which makes the logic of the article more rigorous.

Comments 10: The differences between the plotted 2D contours should be presented obviously.

Response 10: Thank you for the observation. The actual difference of numerical results is low, and it is the characteristic of high uniformity in greenhouse, so the color difference in two-dimensional contour map is not obvious.

Besides the above changes, we have corrected some expression errors.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic is interesting, but the discussion should be improved. For instance, with comparison with more recent papers in the same field.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The paper needs moderate proofreading.

Author Response

Summary

Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments 1: The topic is interesting, but the discussion should be improved. For instance, with comparison with more recent papers in the same field.

Response 1: Fully followed the comment and edited the discussion section in revised edition.

Besides the above changes, we have corrected some expression errors.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Editor

the document contains suggestions that should be included in a new version of the document.

Reagards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Author Response

Summary

Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments 1: Please this article should be improved, there are no clear details of the CFD modelling these should be included, also it is not clear the external boundary condition used in the simulations and the boundary condition set. The article is interesting but needs to be more detailed to CFD, more discussion and comparison with previous studies is required. Please improve all sections of the document, there are also duplicated references, the graphics need to be improved.

Response 1: Fully followed the comment and edited in revised edition.

Comments 2: Please ensure that the writing is as clear and concise as possible, maintaining a balance between the inclusion of important details and the flow of the text. In addition, it would be useful to provide a brief introduction to the context of the study and its relevance, so that readers can quickly understand the importance of the work being done. Finally, I suggest carefully checking grammar and sentence structure to ensure a flawless presentation of the abstract.

Response 2: Fully followed the comment and edited the abstract section in revised edition.

Comments 3: PLEASE CHANGE THE WORDS ARE REPEATED WITH THE ONES IN THE TITLE

Response 3: Fully followed the comment and edited the key-words section in line 24 of the revised edition.

Comments 4: Provide a clearer introduction to the context and significance of the study conducted in relation to tropical greenhouse development in Hainan. It would be useful to clearly state the motivation behind the study and highlight why it is crucial to address the specific challenges related to greenhouse cultivation in tropical areas, such as high temperature, humidity and storms. In addition, it is suggested that the author present information on previous studies and methodologies used, such as the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and results obtained in field experiments, in a more orderly and coherent manner. This would help readers to better understand how the subject has been approached and what the specific contributions of this study are. The authors might consider clearly highlighting the practical implications of the findings and the resulting recommendations, especially in terms of how they could influence the design and operation of tropical greenhouses to improve crop production in Hainan and other similar areas. This would provide a solid and practical conclusion to the summary of the article. please include more studies some of which could be as follows:

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/12/5/1158.

Response 4: Fully followed the comment and edited the Introduction section in revised edition. Besides, the novelty of this paper is to combine the real experimental data with numerical simulation, and adopt a simple simulation method to study the thermal environment and air flow under natural ventilation. According to the simulation results, the optimization measures were put forward: the top window was added to improve the ventilation rate and temperature uniformity in the greenhouse without any mechanical ventilation equipment. This conclusion is helpful to save energy and increase efficiency in tropical greenhouses.

Comments 5: Please include a detail plan of the inverandero, with front and side detail view.

Response 5: Fully followed the comment and the detail view was drawn in edited Fig.3

Comments 6: The measurement in the outdoor environment with what was simulated?

Response 6: Fully followed the comment, the temperature, relative humidity, light intensity indoor and outdoor were evaluated during experiment.

Comments 7: An external mesh is mentioned at the top of the greenhouse, it is not visible in the computational domain, it affects the airflow.

Improve image, please.

How was the size of the computational domain defined?

Improve figure including measurements and other computational domain detail.

How did you define mesh size? No mesh size analysis is observed, which is necessary in these studies.

Response 7: Thank you for the observation. The external mesh at the top of the greenhouse is an external shading net, which was in a closed state in this experiment and did not block the vent and flow field area.

Fully followed the comment, and the revised image was drawn in Fig.3, Fig.4, and Fig.5.

Fully followed the comment, the size of the computational domain was defined by references and pre-experiments.

Fully followed the comment, and the revised image was drawn in Fig.5.

Fully followed the comment, the mesh size was defined by references, the references were added in revised edition.

Comments 8: Please refer to previous studies, all these details have been defined by other authors working on this topic.

Response 8: Fully followed the comment, and the references of previous studies were added in revised edition.

Comments 9: I don't see the insect screen on the table.

Response 9: Fully followed the comment. The Physical Properties of Insect-proof Net was added in Table.4.

Comments 10: Why Wall Surface?

Response 10: Fully followed the comment. And we are very sorry, it was a clerical error, which has been revised as "Plastic Film" in the revised edition.

Comments 11: Why? (In line 239 of original manual script)

Response 11: Fully followed the comment. In this study, the default convergence standard of continuity equation and momentum equation in ANSYS is lower than 10^-3, and that of energy equation is lower than 10^-5. After pre-experiments, the convergence standards were determined as follows: continuity and momentum equations were 10^-5, and the energy equation was 10^-7.

Comments 12: Please divide this graph by stations to make it easier to understand. (In Fig.5 of original manual script)

Response 12: Fully followed the comment.

Comments 13: The same. (In Fig.6 of original manual script)

Response 13: Fully followed the comment.

Comments 14: Please divide this graph by stations to make it easier to understand. (In Fig.8 of original manual script)

Response 14: Fully followed the comment.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This work could be accepted for publication in the present modified version.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

This work could be accepted for publication in the present modified version.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Editor

The new version of manuscript its OK. The authors the have included all suggestions