Development of a Flow Localization Band and Texture in a Forged Near-α Titanium Alloy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments:

A number of grammertical mistakes and spelling errors are found. No consistent use of either past or present tense in a single paragraph, which must be corrected. Describe the abbreviations before using it. The authors can make a list for that or can describe it within the section itself. Some abbreviations are explained at a later sections (i.e. primary alpha) and some are not at all (i.e. rolling direction, high angle boundaries etc). Keep consistency while unsing an abbreviation, i.e. authors have used 'LAB' without describing it and then they have used the term 'low angle grains'. Please correct the typos 'soft', 'mental flow' and 'fund', which should be 'software', 'metal flow' and 'found', lines 72, 76, 140 and 213.

Work specific comments:

Details of forging process (i.e. all steps, temperature, soaking time, cooling process) and a schematic diagram should be provided in the experimental section 2.1. Currently the forging descripton is vague and few details, such as billet rotation, are included in section 4 while describing the results. The process needs to be clearly defined in section 2.1 before describing the results. What is the reason of selecting 2 different step sizes during EBSD in section 2.3? which step size is used for which analysis? the IPF, pole figures and KAM maps are analysed from a selected area only. Indicate where the representative microstructure and the flow localisation band in Fig 1 are taken from. Are they observed in the centre/along the radius/periphery of the forged billet? From where the macrotextures shown in Fig 2 are taken? Is it within/outside the flow localisation band? Or is it from the centre? this description needs to be clear in order to interpret the results. Please include miller indices of texture B in section 3.2. The elongated grains are clearly observed in both zone 2 and 3 of the IPF map, in section 3.3. Therefore, both zones should be included in the flow localisation band. This is also evident from pole figures and KAM maps. Is the first pole figure with no description in Fig 3 a representation of the whole area shown in BC image? Why planes in the pole figure (figure 3) are not matching? I can see 0001 for zone 1 and 0002 for al other zones, is that a typo? or any reason behind this? The colour bars showing texture strength in fig 3 are not visible. Please make them visible, i.e. use larger fonts. The aurhors have described about larger strain in the flow localisation band, line 147, based on the KAM map. However, the KAM map shows similar strain levels in all 10 zones including the flow localization band. Thus, some clear evidence is required before coming to this conclusion, i.e. compare GND density of any other zones with flow localisation band.  The authors have described that the flow localisation band has many deformable grains based on amount of low angle grains in Fig 5. A recrytsallisation fraction map showing the deformed grains from the same area would be more suitable for supporting this claim.  The section 4 describes 0001 as one of the main texture components, whereas it is written as 0002 in the conclusion. Is it a typo? which one is correct?

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thank you very much for your comprehensive comments and thoughtful suggestions on our manuscript entitled:“Flow localization band and Textures developed in a forged near-α titanium alloy”(metals-671322). They are very helpful for us to improve the quality of the manuscript. According to these comments and suggestions, we have carefully made modifications on the original manuscript. Critical sections and revisions following opinions of reviewers are highlighted in red.Meanwhile, a cover letter to explain point-by-point the 
details of the revisions in the manuscript is also provided.

Best Regards.

Yours Sincerely

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article presents important results but the quality of the text must be improved. There is a list of some faults which must be polished. The most important fault is that, there are some figures which are not described in the text and/or in the caption. Please read your manuscript carefully

 

Line 70: “Bruke” -> Bruker.

Line 72: please add any ref. to TEXEval 2.5 software.

Subsection 3.1 -> Fig. 1b is not described in the subsection. Please add few words about what we can see on the Fig. 1b.

Fig. 2. Some description of intensity are not readable. i.e. in the center of left hand subfigure. There is key on the right side, but is not used in the figures. What does it mean “calculated PF 002”? Please be more friendly for the readers. What is the reason to use the right side subfigure? What kind of information does it presents? There any word about this subfigure.

Fig. 3. There is not sufficient description. We see two subfigures on the top, but I cannot find any information what are presented on them.

Line 104: Please add description to some shortcuts like IPF, BC, RD1 (line 94), RD2, ED, XRD, etc.

Line 213: it is fund ???

Author Response

Dear reviewer

Thank you very much for your comprehensive comments and thoughtful suggestions on our manuscript entitled:“Flow localization band and Textures developed in a forged near-α titanium alloy”(metals-671322). They are very helpful for us to improve the quality of the manuscript. According to these comments and suggestions, we have carefully made modifications on the original manuscript. Critical sections and revisions following opinions of reviewers are highlighted in yellow.Meanwhile,  a cover letter to explain point-by-point the 
details of the revisions in the manuscript is also provided.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The Authors,

Thank you very much for the revised version your manuscript. However, I found some problems, which made the paper not good as is possible to do. Some of my comments were not treated seriously. Please do second round more carefully. I hope that the manuscript will be published in the best form as it can be.

 

1.       The problem with the TEXEval software is still incomplete. I asked to add the ref. or webpage linked with the software. It is important from point of view readers, which are not familiar with this kind of research. I cannot find any ref. myself. Please treat this question seriously. The same problem is marked on line 82 (HKL Channel 5 software).

2.       Thank for the figure 1. But it is quite difficult to understand what mean i.e. “Three times” below 1180 deg. C/5h. What does happen with the sample between heating process? The AC shortcut is not described as well.

3.       The description of Fig. 2 is incomplete. The authors written in the cover letter the problem was solved, but is not. The quality of the caption is not on acceptable form. The format of the caption is not compatible with other descriptions.

4.       Line 103 “miller index” should be “Miller index”

5.       RD1 is first time used on line 101, but there is no description of the abbreviation. However, the author put in the cover letter that this question is solved, but is not.

6.       I have asked about the legend on fig. 3. In the text we can find that B point marks 1.88 (line 103) intensity, on the legend red dot means 1.74, as well C pink points 1.34 (line 106) – on the legend 1.45.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewer

Thank you very much for your comprehensive comments and thoughtful suggestions on our manuscript entitled:“Flow localization band and Textures developed in a forged near-α titanium alloy”(metals-671322). They are very helpful for us to improve the quality of the manuscript. According to these comments and suggestions, we have carefully made modifications on the original manuscript. Critical sections and revisions following opinions of reviewers are highlighted in yellow in cover letter.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf