Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper aims at characterizing the visual appearance of AISI 430 ferritic stainless-steel sheets with bright finishing. The paper is interesting, however, there are issues that should be corrected.

1. Materials and methods – the average grain size achieved due to annealing should be given. The grain size may affect the reflectivity.
2. Materials and methods – the production process is unclear and more details should be given e.g. annealing temperature, was the surface polished before annealing, which solution?
3. Materials and Methods – “Measurements were carried out in three different places on the sample surface to consider possible texture inhomogeneities”. Please, specify which places.
4. Fig. 1 the scale bar should be added.
5. Materials and methods in Fig. 1 one can notice the sample with the presence of The fact that bright finish will be compared with haze should be described in Materials and Methods.
6. Fig. 5 The legend should be added describing colours of the lines.
7. Authors mention the important impact of texture on their results. To better understand the results, the texture analysis should be added.
8. Th comparison of obtained results with the literature should be added, especially reflectivity should be compared.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We do appreciate very much the reviewer’s comments, which will improve indeed the quality of the manuscript. All her/him suggestions have been addressed. Please find enclosed the answers to the comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper reported the visual appearance of AISI 430 ferritic stainless steel sheet products  by means of  surface metrology and photometric parameters，which dose contain some valueble results. However, I think the whole paper is only based on the analysis of surface methodology, but lack of more detailed characterization methods. Thus, I recommend accept the paper after a major revision.

It is suggested to improve the quality of figures. And the three-dimensional topography of the surface is necessary for analysis.

Author Response

We do appreciate very much the reviewer’s comments, which will improve indeed the quality of the manuscript. Please, find enclosed the answers to the comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper investigates the relation between the relation between roughness parameters and visual appearance of AISI 430 stainless steel. The results are interesting and innovative. The manuscript can be accepted by metals. Here are two questions.

1.  Some researchers have investigated the relation between other roughness parameters such as Ra and visual appearance of stainless steel. For example, the work done by Zhang et al, DOI：3901/JME.2016.14.048. The authors can rich the literatures in introduction.
2.  The physical meaning of Sq/Sal is not clear to readers. The authors should describe the meaning further.
3. Usually Ra and Pc are used in controlling the surface topography in the production of stainless steel. Therefore, many papers investigate the relation between Ra or Pc and the visual appearance of stainless steel. In this manuscript, the authors choose Sq/Sal to build the relation. The results are clear and sound. However, the physical meaning of Sq/Sal is not clear to readers. And how to apply this parameter in manufacturing stainless steel need be considered and explained in the manuscript.
4. Some figures such as figure 2 can be put in Supplementary Materials.

Author Response

We do appreciate very much the reviewer’s comments which will improve indeed the quality of the manuscript. All her/him suggestions have been addressed. Please, find enclosed the answers to the comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I accept the answer to recommendations and all changes introduced to the article.

Author Response

We will like to thank the reviewer for her/his valuable suggestions.