Effect of Transition Layer on Properties of Tungsten-Tantalum (W-Ta) Laminated Composite

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

How is the tensile sample design selected?please provide standard.

The case of W/Nb/Ta in Fig.3 should be further explained.

Bonding of layers should be verified by e.g. indentation and scratch. Authors are strongly encouraged to use such techniques to strengthen their findings and discussion.

Why does the deformation is some cases not start from zero in Fig. 6?

Numbering of references should be reviewed

How the SPS conditions of W-Ta laminates were chosen?

How was the design (stacking sequence, thickness, etc.) chosen?

Nanoindentation could provide insight in plasticity and deformation  of the materials.

Author Response

Thank you for your reading and review. PPlease see the attachment for the response.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is full of important content. I enjoyed reading it. While I am recommending publication, I think that it need of several minor revision that can improve quality and readability of the text:
1) The abstract should be more informative. Authors are recommended to add about a method for producing laminated composites.
2) The methodology is not clear, please describe in detail the main material and methods used. Include all important details so that the reader can repeat the work.
- Why is the thickness of the films (Ni, Ti, Nb, Mo) different in the experiment? Do you think the film thickness affects the properties of the transition layer? The niobium film has the largest thickness (25 µm) compared to other films (10-15 µm). A composite with niobium showed the best results. Maybe an increase in films (Ni, Ti, Mo) thickness will lead to different results? This is not discussed in the article.
- How was the sintering temperature adjusted? Based on what criteria? The temperature was selected experimentally?
3) The authors aim to investigate 4 composites: W/Ni/Ta, W/Ti/Ta, W/Nb/Ta, W/Mo/Ta. Table 2 shows the composite W/TiN/Ta. But the article does not contain experimental data on this composite (W/TiN/Ta).

 

Author Response

Thank you for your reading and review. Please see the attachment for the response.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The article presented by Z. Yang, et al, shows a comprehensive study of the effect of Ni, Ti, Nb and Mo as a transition layer for W-Ta Alloy. The article is explicative and well-conducted. Few questions come to mind while reading the manuscript.

• Can the authors include some XRD patterns of the samples? I wonder about the phases of tantalum and other materials.
• Can the authors rule out the presence of Carbides inclusion on the layers?
• How was the nitride layer prepared?
• Can the findings of this paper be explained in terms of low and diffusivity of the elements?

Author Response

Thank you for your reading and review. Please see the attachment for the response.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

* The paper needs some additional information.

 

* The operating conditions of the tests are not clearly nor rigorously detailed. Neither, the machine test, nor the sensor, nor the speed, nor the temperature of the test are given in the text.

 

* The figures 3 and 6 show some curves, but we do not have any idea on how these curves have been obtained. Is it a single test ? Is it resulting from several tests ? What is the reproducibiliby and uncertainty on these curves ?

 

* From the figures 3 and 6, the effective Young modulus and shear modulus can be extracted, respectively. It would be of great interest for the reader to have some numerical values in view to compare those with literature.

Author Response

Thank you for your reading and review. Please see the attachment for the response.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

It can now be published as is

Author Response

Thank you for your comments

Reviewer 4 Report

* From the figures 3 and 6, the effective Young modulus and shear modulus can be extracted, respectively. It would be of great interest for the reader to have some numerical values in view to compare those with literature.

 

* Some comparison between expected values and those provided by the experiments must be provided. Simple mixing laws depending on the studied configuration are to be discussed in terms of effective Young modulus E_eff and effective shear modulus G_eff.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments

In this paper, the author is more concerned about the interface between the transition layer and the matrix and the influence of the diffusion of elements in the transition layer on the matrix structure. Young's modulus and shear modulus are not discussed in this paper. In the following studies, we may discuss the mixing law of the effective Young's modulus E_eff and the effective shear modulus G_eff according to the studied configuration.

Round 3

Reviewer 4 Report

Review metals-768523, v3

 

Effect of transition layer on properties of tungsten-tantalum (W-Ta) laminated composite

 

 

Comments:

 

* The paper needs some additional comments and analysis.

 

* From the figures 3 and 6, the effective Young modulus and shear modulus can be extracted, respectively. It would be of great interest for the reader to have some numerical values in view to compare those with literature.

 

* Some comparison between expected values and those provided by the experiments must be provided. Simple mixing laws depending on the studied configuration are to be discussed in terms of effective Young modulus E_eff and effective shear modulus G_eff.

 

* The authors must discuss their experimental results in the linear range according to a standard strain range (“Fig.3: Tensile test strain-stress curves” and “Fig.7: Stress-deformation curves of three-point bending”) by comparison with those from the literature.

E = 2G(1 + ν)

Those values we can find are typically:

Young's Modulus: E(GPa)

Poisson's ratio: ν( )

 

               E(GPa) | ν( )

Molybdene (Mo) 329 | 0.31

Nickel (Ni)    214 | 0.31

Niobium (Nb)   105 | 0.35

Tantale (Ta)   186 | 0.35

Titane (Ti)    114 | 0.34

Tungstene (W)  406 | 0.28

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. The elastic modulus of W-Ta laminated composites have been discussed. Please refer to the manuscript for details.