Identification of Sensitive Parameters for Deformation of Asphalt Concrete Face Rockfill Dam of Pumped Storage Power Station

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

See attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

We greatly appreciate the time and efforts of the reviewer in reviewing this manuscript. All the comments provided are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have made modifications that hope to meet the “Water” publication standard. A revised manuscript with all changes marked in red was uploaded and the revised parts were clearly explained in this response. We hope this response can help the reviewer in comparing the original and the revised manuscripts, and understanding why changes were made as well. The main corrections in the paper and responses to the reviewer's comments are uploaded as an attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1. The results should reflect how the results of this study can be helpful for the design and safety assessment of the asphalt concrete face rockfill dam?
2. Please add reference studies regarding the statement "Although the Duncan Chang E-B model has been widely used in geotechnical and hydraulic engineering"
3. In the last paragraph of the introduction section why "the ACFRD of a PSPS in Ningxia Province of China was taken as an example"? 
4.  In section 2 the statement " Currently, Duncan Chang E-B model was often used to describe the nonlinear constitutive relationship" is confusing.
5. Why the orthogonal test has been adopted for present study?
6.  Authors mentioned that "During model calculation, the dam foundation overburden, dam material (e.g., asphalt concrete face, cushion, transition layer, main rockfill zone, secondary rockfill zone),  reservoir bottom backfill zone and rockfill behind the dam were considered as nonlinear  materials" please justify this statement.
7. What  does the authors want to conclude from the figure 4?

Author Response

We greatly appreciate the time and efforts of the reviewer in reviewing this manuscript. All the comments provided are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have made modifications that hope to meet the “Water” publication standard. A revised manuscript with all changes marked in red was uploaded and the revised parts were clearly explained in this response. We hope this response can help the reviewer in comparing the original and the revised manuscripts, and understanding why changes were made as well. The main corrections in the paper and responses to the reviewer's comments are uploaded as an attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

No further comments.