Features of the Physical-Mechanical Properties and Chemical Composition of Chert Gravels

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Line 37: it is not correct to call a by-product in the quarrying of sand as a rock. I suggest to change “chert rock” in “cherty material”, “chert gravel”

Table 1: to make the table easier to read, the meaning of the measured parameters should be indicated in the legend (i.e. OD =.., SSD =.., AD =…)

Line 142: report in brackets the meaning of ISRM

Line 238: change d with e

 

Author Response

Line 37: it is not correct to call a by-product in the quarrying of sand as a rock. I suggest to change “chert rock” in “cherty material”, “chert gravel”

Thank you very much. It is indeed a very good suggestion: the term “chert rocks” was replaced by the term “chert gravels” everywhere in the text.

Table 1: to make the table easier to read, the meaning of the measured parameters should be indicated in the legend (i.e. OD =.., SSD =.., AD =…)

Thank you very much – the meaning of the parameters was added just below Table 1 (see Lines 123-124 in the amended version.

Line 142: report in brackets the meaning of ISRM

The sentence was re-written as follows: Following the recommendations of the International Society of Rock Mechanics (ISRM) and the standard of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) [16, 22] for uniaxial compression strength.

Line 238: change d with e

Done – thank you very much.

Reviewer 2 Report

1.The last paragraph of 1.2 and the last part of 1.1 are repeated.

2.The introduction is missing some very relevant references.

3.At the end of the Introduction is not clear where the innovative aspects of the research are.

4.There is no information about the design of the experiment.

5.Photo typesetting is a bit crowded,not beautiful enough.

6.The article lacks a statement of the experimental process.

7.A concise summary of all experimental results should be included in the conclusion.

8.Author needs to emphasize the novel insights obtained from their study.

Author Response

1.The last paragraph of 1.2 and the last part of 1.1 are repeated.

Thank you very much for your remark – the repeated sentence was deleted from Sub. Sect. 1.2

2. The introduction is missing some very relevant references.

Thank you very much – We added the relevant references in the Section “Discussion” – see [32-39], Lines 388-405.

3. At the end of the Introduction is not clear where the innovative aspects of the research are.

Thank you very much, The corresponding clarification was added to the amended version. Lines 83-86

4. There is no information about the design of the experiment.

Figure 4 presenting the study skeleton was added to the amended version.

 5.Photo typesetting is a bit crowded, not beautiful enough.

We guess that the reviewer means Fig. 2b – this figure was corrected with a higher resolution

 6. The article lacks a statement of the experimental process.

Thank you very much - the necessary changes were done - Lines 90-93.

 7. A concise summary of all experimental results should be included in the conclusion.

Thank you very much the most important results opening the new way for the future research development was added to the Conclusion: Lines 307-325

8. Author needs to emphasize the novel insights obtained from their study.

Thank you very much – It is done – Lines 320-325

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Editor,

I apologize for the delay in sending you my review and thank you very much for the opportunity to review the manuscript "Features of the properties of chert rock."

First of all, in my opinion, authors should better specify in the title the kind of properties they investigate in their work.

 

GENERAL COMMENTS

This paper deals with a broad study of the physical-mechanical properties and chemical composition of chert rocks, with the aim of understanding which of them can help develop the methodology of rock comminution in the future. The authors do not explain what would be the usefulness of the comminution of such rocks. They give no indication of possible reuses of this material to reduce the concentration of a significant amount of chert "waste" in quarries (up to 19 million tons).

The Materials, Instruments and Results section is well explained and described, with emphasis on the various physical-mechanical tests to which the samples were subjected. However, the use of SEM, whose technical specifications should be given, provides for both chert and carbonate inclusion samples only semiquantitative analyses.

Regarding the "discussions" paragraph, the authors write that "the obtained values of porosity and water absorption are extremely low (less than a 271 percent), which indicates that the aggregate made from this rock can be promising from this point of view for the requirements of the asphalt and concrete industries" without taking into account the bibliography on the subject of use of chert in concrete, such us "I. Moundoungou, D. Bulteel, E. Garcia-Diaz, V. Thiéry, P. Dégrugilliers, J.G. Hammerschlag, Reduction of ASR expansion in concretes based on reactive chert aggregates: Effect of alkali neutralisation capacity, Construction and Building Materials, Volume 54, 2014, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2013.12.036

The paper is generally well written, but a few statements in the text should be written more carefully and better explained.

SPECIFIC COMMENTS

- Line 51 please check the font

- Fig. 2(b) please insert an image with a highest definition

- Line 73 authors opened a bracket, but they did not close it.

Author Response

1. First of all, in my opinion, authors should better specify in the title the kind of properties they investigate in their work.

Thank you very much, the title of the Ms. was corrected following the reviewer’s suggestion. We agree that the new one better emphasizes the study performed: “Features of the physical-mechanical properties and chemical composition of chert gravels.”

2. The authors do not explain what would be the usefulness of the comminution of such rocks. They give no indication of possible reuses of this material to reduce the concentration of a significant amount of chert "waste" in quarries (up to 19 million tons).

This paper deals with the wide study of mechanical physical properties as well as it’s the chemical composition of chert gravels. Its motivation is to understand which of them can assist in developing the methodology of gravel comminution to meet the requirements for the aggregate in the asphalt and concrete industry.

3. The Materials, Instruments and Results section is well explained and described, with emphasis on the various physical-mechanical tests to which the samples were subjected. However, the use of SEM, whose technical specifications should be given, provides for both chert and carbonate inclusion samples only semiquantitative analyses.

The following sentence was re-written (L217-219): To understand the chemical composition of the chert gravels the study was conducted using SEM (Quanta 200) at the Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science & Technology of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev (Beer Sheva, Israel).

The weight percentage of chemical elements is presented in Table 2

3. Regarding the "discussions" paragraph, the authors write that "the obtained values of porosity and water absorption are extremely low, which indicates that the aggregate made from this rock can be promising from this point of view for the requirements of the asphalt and concrete industries" without taking into account the bibliography on the subject of use of chert in concrete, such us "I. Moundoungou, D. Bulteel, E. Garcia-Diaz, V. Thiéry, P. Dégrugilliers, J.G. Hammerschlag, Reduction of ASR expansion in concretes based on reactive chert aggregates: Effect of alkali neutralisation capacity, Construction and Building Materials, Volume 54, 2014, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2013.12.036.

Thank you very much for reviewer suggestion. The corresponding sentences (L292-298) were re-written as follows:  The obtained values of porosity and water absorption are extremely low (less than a percent), which indicates that the aggregate made from this rock can be promising from this point of view for the requirements of the asphalt and concrete industries. Note that the study of the chert properties for the concrete industry is in the mainstream in this field, especially with a view to avoiding ASR expansion in concrete [32-38]. For example, it was noted that concrete performed with both coarse and fine chert aggregates was non-expansive [32]. The chert studies in the field of the asphalt industry are much rare [39].

4. Line 51 please check the font

Thank you very much – it was corrected.

5. Fig. 2(b) please insert an image with a highest definition

Thank you very much. It was done.

6. Line 73 authors opened a bracket, but they did not close it.

Thank you very much – it was corrected.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

I appreciated the revised version of your manuscript and I thank you for having welcomed all the suggestions.

Regards