Experimental Study on the Sedimentation Performance of an Arc-Plate Linear Sedimentation Tank

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript titled "Experimental Study on Sedimentation Performance of Arc-Plate Linear Sedimentation Tank" is written very well. The introduction, experimental design, and discussions were all very good. I did not find anything to revise; therefore, I recommend accepting this paper in its present form.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. 

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper focuses on the separation of water and particles using a new designed arc plate linear sedimentation tank. Compared to the traditional inclined-plate sedimentation tank, the sedimentation efficiency is highly increased. This work is creative and interesting. I recommend this paper for publication after minor revision.

1. In abstract, for the water samples containing the sediment particles with average sizes of 571.110 μm and 162.254 μm, can the the optimal structural and process parameters be determined, such as the inflow rate, the number of arc plates, etc.

2. Figures 6 and 7 appear to be numerical simulation results. So, on line 9, “experimental research” should be changed to “a research combining numerical calculations with experiments”.

3.  It should be stated what simulation software is used. It is Fluent, Ansys or other software.

4. In Figures 10-12, what does “percent” mean? It is mass fraction, partition coefficient or other meanings. Please write the meaning of the vertical axis title clearly.

Overall, it is quite good. Some sentences need to be modified.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. We have tried our best to improve and made some changes in the manuscript. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The work contains a description of interesting results of hydraulic tests of the sedimentation tank (on scale of 1:1).

No analysis of of measurement errors.

Unclear dimensioning in Fig. 5 ((X-axis).

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. We have tried our best to improve and made some changes in the manuscript. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors presented that arc-plate in a linear sedimentation tank show improved sedimentation performance.

The results clearly showed that the arc-plate showed better performance and discussed that that is due to the increased effective settling area.

However, I suggest clarifying some minor things:

1) Have the authors performed test on any other shapes? why especially arc-type? Can any shapes with increased effective settling area increase the sedimentation efficiency?

2) Figure 8 is difficult to understand which type has a better performance. Recommend plotting the concentrations of each type under a chosen Z. (such as concentrations of each type under Z=20cm) 

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. We have tried our best to improve and made some changes in the manuscript. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf