A Study on the Grain Refining Mechanisms and Melt Superheat Treatment of Aluminum-Bearing Mg Alloys
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments for revision:
- This paper should be a research paper, but the second part “ Grain Refinement of Mg–Al Based Alloys” is just like a review paper. Part 1 (1. Introduction) and Part 2 should be combined, simplified and briefly described. Accordingly, figures 1 to 4 are unnecessary.
- The test scheme of superheating test shall be supplemented in the section of " Experimental Procedures ". For example, it is not known how much the temperature of Fig. 5 (Figure 5. Influence of superheating on the grain size for a) CP…) is overheated?
- The current figure 9 should be placed in the section of " Experimental Procedures ".
- The conclusion should be rewritten and the content of the review should be deleted.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper presents experiments documenting study on grain refinement mechanism and melt supercritical flow of Al-Mg alloy during heat treatment. The topic and obtained results are interesting. Before possible publication I recommend to improve the article in the following points:
1.The information of the equipment and instrument employed in this paper should be provided as an uniform format, for example: optical microscope (Leica MC 170).
2.Use only figure 11C The EDS results of D are not rigorous, supplementary Fig. 11C Surface scan distribution diagram of each element of intermetallic compound in D.
3.The coordinate axes of the pictures in Fig. 13 and Fig. 14 shall be closed, and the grain size in Fig. 14 shall be subject to error analysis.
4.p.12, 444:What was the “γ2-Al8Mn5 ”?
5.Line 474 : “When comparing the two phases from the crystallo graphic point of view, the ε-AlMn phase with hexagonal crystal structure is more likely an effective nucleant for α-Mg grains than Al8Mn5 with rrhombohedral crystal structure” Describe the reason of this sentence in the main text.
6.Line 495 « As the temperature decreases below the equilibrium melting temperature, the liquid phase which should have transformed into a solid becomes increasingly thermodynamically unstable. » Wrong English. Reword.
7.The conclusion is wordy and needs to be concise.
8.References to be implemented regarding Line 217 Temperature-solubility Theory
, notably missing:
R.P. Lu, Metals 2021. https://doi.org/10.3390/met11010079
- S. Ganguly, Sci. Eng. A.2021.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2020.140341.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript sent for publication concerns the heat treatment of magnesium alloys. Due to the increasing use of such materials in industry, the topic of the article is topical. The research was carried out mainly in terms of determining the mechanisms during heat treatment, which allow to obtain a fine-grained structure. The authors clearly defined the purpose of the research. A fairly extensive review of the literature is also presented on the phenomena occurring in multi-component magnesium alloys, which affect the grain size.
The more important comments or ambiguities include:
- The research was carried out for magnesium alloys produced for research purposes.Has the effect of heat treatment been compared for commercial magnesium alloys?
- Have any strength tests been carried out that could indicate the effect of heat treatment not only on the grain size, but also on the change in mechanical properties of the alloys?
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The manuscript deals with combined effects of overheating and of the presence of Mn on the grain-refining of Mg-Al-Zn (mg-Al based alloy). the experimental part of the work is anticipated by a meaningful survey on grain refinement mechanisms of Mg-Al alloys.
The experimental work is carefully arranged and presented.
To the reviewer's view some minor changescan be made to improve the readibility of the manuscript.
- Not all the figures and the tables are directy mentioned into the text. This has to be done, and figures/tables should be close to the corresponding text
- When figures are taken from literature , there is no explicit mentioning of the publication permission requested/given
- Separate discussions from the results. This could be made quite easily ( ass the handwritten text).
- both in results than discussion subparagraph could divide the part relatedto 'conventional' casting experiments from those on ribbons.
- A file with handwritten comments is added.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This revised manuscript has modified according to the comments of the reviewer.
