A Preliminary Study of New Experimental Low-Cost Fe–P-Based and Mn–Fe–P-Based Brazing Filler Metals for Brazing of Non-Alloy and Low-Alloy Steels

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

An interesting study was conducted on the wettability and hardness capacities of Fe-P and Mn-Fe-P-based new brazing filler metals for brazing unalloyed and low-alloyed steels. The work is very fluent, understandable and carefully presented. In this state, it is at an acceptable level. It is recommended, however, that minor corrections be made as noted below.

Minor comments:

The Hardness values in Table 2 do not need to be given as HRC. HV10 values are sufficient. Likewise, in Table 3 and 4, wettability angles can be given only with mean and standard deviation values.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The work submitted for review is relevant because it touches upon the development of new solders, which are widely in demand in modern industry.

 

1. The first section presents a literature review on the soldering method and the different types of solders used in combination with different alloys. It is also noted that one of the most important parameters when choosing a filler material is the wettability of the surface. Solders based on Fe-P and Mn-Fe-P systems with additions of B, C and Si were chosen as objects of study.

The literature review is quite detailed, but based on not the most modern literature.

2. The second section provides a detailed description of the materials used, methods for preparing samples from them, as well as further research methods.

Research methods are generally accepted in this field and are chosen adequately in accordance with the purpose of the work.

3. The third section presents the main new results and their discussion.

The description of the results is accompanied by their discussion, including references to literary sources. The analysis of the results is well done.

The presented illustrations are quite high quality and quite clearly reflect the results obtained.

4. The fourth section contains conclusions on the new results obtained.

The findings need to be revised.

 

Remarks.

1. In the list of cited literature, there are only 2 publications published in the last 5 years.

The authors should supplement their article with more modern literature. The topic is relevant and it will not be a big problem.

2. Authors should work on the layout of figures and tables. Some of them do not fit on one page and are not very well spaced across two pages.

For example, table 3. The text from page 10 could be moved to page 9, and table 3 could be placed entirely on page 10.

3. There are no confidence intervals in figure 5. Since these are measurement results obtained experimentally, the error should be indicated on the graphs.

4. The conclusions are written too voluminously and are more suitable for the discussion section of the results.

Please shorten your conclusions. They should contain a brief description of the specific results achieved, without a detailed description of the reasons for their achievement.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Zorc et al. prepared a series of Fe-P and Mn-Fe-P based brazing filler metals which have potential application for brazing of non-alloys and low-alloy steels. They investigated the thermodynamic and mechanical properties of the prepared samples. Moreover, they performed wetting experiments to obtain wettability of these filler metals on several alloys. The experimental processes were described clearly. The obtained information might be useful for people working in the related fields and for potential industrial applications of these materials. The manuscript is written properly. The text is in the scope of the Journal. Thus, I’d like to suggest acceptance of this manuscript for publication in Metals in the present form after minor improvements.

I’d like to suggest that the authors compare the experimental data on the hardness and wetting angles of the present systems with the conventional ones in the literature.

The English in the text is fine.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors took into account the comments and made sufficient corrections to the text of the publication.