Experimental Study of the Injectability of Infiltration Grouting in Surface Moraine of Pulang Copper Mine

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It is a good paper. Based on the overall quality, a major revision is needed.

Comments:

(1) Introduction. Only three paras... Please clarify the research gap in the introduction.

(2) Introduction. Please clarify the novelty of this study and main tasks in this study.

(3) What is the feature of Injectability of Infiltration Grouting in Surface Moraine of Pulang Copper Mine? Any difference from other constructions, such as tunneling...The authors can cite "A state-of-art review on development and progress of backfill grouting materials for shield tunneling". To learn and discuss the study and get some insights about the grouting materials.

(4) Figure 1 is too abstract. Please add a photo of the equipment.

(5) section 4. grouting mechanism model. Is this conventional model suitable for your grouting materials? How did you verify this?

(6) Conclusions. Please add more details and provide useful conclusions.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The language should be polished.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions! Please find my itemized responses in below and my revisions/corrections in the re-submitted files.

For the first amendment opinion, we have added the innovation points of this paper in the introduction. As for the third suggestion, through the study of the article "Development and Progress of Shield tunnel filling grouting materials", the paper has a systematic understanding of the shield tunnel filling grouting materials and is quoted in this paper. For the fourth suggestion, the experimental diagram of the sample device has been replaced with the physical diagram of the experimental device. As for the fifth review opinion, the core of the grouting mechanism model used in the paper is conservation of energy, and the applicability of the grouting material used and the grouting mechanism model has been demonstrated in the article. For Article 6 review comments, more details and provide useful conclusions have been added according to the suggestions of reviewers.

We hope that the revised manuscript can be published in water.

 

You sincerely.

Zeng Liu

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study is devoted to studying the dependence of the penetration depth of the grouting solution on grouting pressure and the structural characteristics of fine-grained moraine. The moraine is an accumulation body with poor structural stability. In addition, the structures of these geological formations vary greatly depending on the conditions of formation. Therefore, in the case of developing a project to strengthen them, an individual approach is required. The authors focused on the Pulang Mine moraine.

In general, the article contains interesting experimental material. An analytical analysis of the results and the conclusions drawn by the authors will be useful in solving practical engineering problems.

However, unfortunately, there are some comments to the presented studies:

1) 2.1. Grouting Slurry should be expanded to include a more detailed description of the chemical grouting material used. If the emphasis is on astringent properties, then indicate these properties; if the emphasis is on rheological properties, then indicate what these properties are. Is the composition known, or is it the authors’ own development?

2) In 2.5. Criteria for Annotability needs to be justified “The mold length used in this study…” – why 20 cm? Is this related to the frequency of injector placement in real-life conditions? How correct is it to use this size?

3) Lines 249-251 probably mistakenly mention osmotic pressure, or an explanation is required of what osmotic pressure we are talking about when injecting a solution into dry soil.

4) Line 274-276 – it is not clear what the authors meant “When the density of moraine equals the grouting pressure” – density cannot be equal to pressure. I recommend rephrasing the whole sentence, because... the meaning is not clear.

5) Lines 251-255 contain text that is not related to research and does not explain the given formulas

6) In the Conclusions, the sentence in lines 325-326 is probably constructed incorrectly and the cause-and-effect relationship is broken - did the density of the moraine samples decrease due to slurry entering depth?

References

7) In lines 68-70, it is not clear which scientists from UK are being referred to.

8) It is necessary to add a reference to the original source from which the equations for calculating the average pore diameter are taken (line 169). Or is this the authors' equation?

Design:

9) In the article, equations and formulas should be highlighted on separate lines and numbered should be added to them.

10) Line 84 is probably an error in the phrase “to inject sand into sand”.

11) Lines 184-186 repeat the same sentence twice.

12) In lines 276 - 277, the authors probably meant to say “the relationship between pore diameter and grouting depth of the moraine can be determined.”

13) Lines 288-297 should be structured, the equations highlighted, and checked for syntax errors (what do the “you know:” inserts refer to?)

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions! Please find my itemized responses in below and my revisions/corrections in the re-submitted files.

As for the first amendment, the slurry used in this paper was independently developed by the team according to the application situation on site, and the characteristics of chemical slurry have been appropriately added to the paper according to the reviewer's suggestion. As for the second modification suggestion, due to the selection of coarse particles with a diameter of 20mm in the experiment, if the mold size is too small, it may lead to large errors in the experimental results. In order to avoid the influence of too small size on the experimental accuracy, the grouting mold with a length of 200mm is selected. For the third amendment, the article "osmotic pressure" refers to the minimum grouting pressure required by the slurry to achieve full penetration grouting. For the fourth amendment, this sentence originally intended to express "under the condition that the two independent variables of grouting pressure and sample density are the same", this paragraph has been amended. Amendments to Articles 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13 are mainly statements and text editing errors, which have been corrected. For the amendment of Article 8, the formula in the introduction of this paper has been cited. For amendments to Articles 9 and 13, the equations and formulas should be highlighted separately and numbered according to the reviewer's comments.

We hope that the revised manuscript can be published in water.

 

You sincerely.

Zeng Liu

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper used the experimental test to study the effect of grouting pressure, porosity and pore diameter on the spilability of moraine. It shows that the grouting depth increases linearly with increasing sample porosity. This meaning of this research is that it can provide effective support for the prevention and control of underground debris flow in Pulang Copper Mine. Generally, this paper is quite interesting. The following comments are for the authors to consider:

(1) Grouting is widely using in mining engineering to improve the stability of rock masses and be used as the bonding agent. So, in the introduction, after the sentence of "Grouting is a widely used effective tool that can reinforce and modify soil-rock mixtures with ease of construction, swift results, and minimal environmental impact", I recommend that the latest research (10.1007/s00603-022-03160-8) can be added to support this. 

(2) for the unit, please add a space before it, such as 0.1MPa.

(3) Please add a nomenclature section for this paper.

(4) How did the authors determine the grouting pressure in Table 3.

(5) Can authors briefly discuss what the further research work will be conducted after the current paper.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions! Please find my itemized responses in below and my revisions/corrections in the re-submitted files.

As for the amendment to Article 1, after studying the article "A Constitutive Model to Reveal the Anchorage Mechanism of Fully Bonded Bolts", A new understanding of the reinforcement and modification of soil-rock mixture by grouting has been obtained and cited in this paper. As for the revision of Article 2, the format of the article has been modified according to the reviewer's comments. As for the revision of Article 3, a nomenclature section has been added to the paper according to the reviewer's comments. As for the 4th amendment, the grouting device used in this experiment has a pressure gauge at the connection between the slurry storage tank and the power device and the slurry storage tank for monitoring the grouting pressure. The grouting pressure can be adjusted by adjusting the reducing valve to control the high pressure gas flow. As for the revision of Article 5, the next work plan has been added according to the reviewer's comments.

We hope that the revised manuscript can be published in water.

 

You sincerely.

Zeng Liu

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for your improvement.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have done enough work to correct the errors. The article may be accepted for publication. Thank you