A Quasi-Steady Model for Estimating the Rate of Frost Heave When Subjected to Overburden Pressure

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

This paper prposed a quasi-steady frost heave prediction model. The water migration and frost heave were investigated. This can provide a reference for engineering construction in cold regions. Before it could be accepted, the following comments are suggested:

1. In abstract, the tesnse should be consistent: "occurs" should be "occurred". Also, the language can be further significantly improved.

2. The frost heave occurred in soils, but in abstract, it was not specified. "Buildings built in cold regions are always subjected to frost heave", I believe the authros mean it is the soils underneath the buildings are subject to frost heave.

3. P65, "gradient"

4. The references in the introduction are insufficient to support the statements.

5. The authors mentioned "Experimental and theoretical study on the frost heave started in 1920s.". Two references were mentioned: Taber (1930) (not found in the reference list) and (Bronfenbrener and Bronfenbrener,  2010). That is a big gap between these studies. Some references are too outdated: Year 1930, 1943, 1961, 1980, 1981,1985, etc. 

6. Lines 116-148 need to be split.

7. The structure needs to be reorganized, e.g., 3.1 could be interated into Section 2. Section 4 could be integrated into Section 3 (Results and discussion).

8. "series of one-dimensional frost heave tests under the external pressure  were carried out in the laboratory". No laboratory tests were conducted in the submission.

9. What's frost heave rate? Please define it.

10. Fig. 6: The left plot only had a black line, why? Please also explain why "the hydraulic conductivity of the soil samples decreases exponentially with the decrease of the temperature and unfrozen water content".

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The language should be further improved.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses in the attachment and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

My comments to furhter improve the manuscript;

1- In the introduction the authors have discussed well about past research on frost heave model.  However, I feel there is a lack of clarity on why authors decide on a quasi-steady model. It would be good to discuss this in detail in the introduction which is missing.

2- Please can you provide a reference for lines 108 to 115

3- What is the reason for the migration of water from unfrozen to frozen fringe? Please can you explain

4- Fig 1. should be better explained. What is the reason for the change in stresses in such a system? Please explain.

5- Fig 1. Why pore water pressure suddenly change? Why there is overlap between quasi-static state and dynamic state.

6- Derivation in Section 2.2 can be included in the appendix. And instead section 2.2 can provide a brief discussion/explanation on the derivation

7- Please change the caption for the second table to Table 2.

8- Table 1. Why L for silty clay [19] is different from others? And why the density is very low compared to other silty clay.

9- Why the shape of the curve in Fig. 3 change every time? Please explain

10- If Fig. 7, the results from Ming et al. significantly vary and do not fit in the acceptable error range. What is the possible explanation

11- Please improve the quality of abstract and conclusion of this study.

12- Overall, paper need major improvements before publication.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor revision on the quality of English is necessary.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses in the attachment and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. In line 280, add "and".

2. In line 289, section "3.1.2. Frost heave", the section number needs to be corrected.

3. Tables 1-2 need to be readjusted to have a better presentation.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The authors have improved the language accordingly. Some minor revisions would improve the language further as suggested.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have addressed all my comments except comment no. 6

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf