Gas-Atomized Nickel Silicide Powders Alloyed with Molybdenum, Cobalt, Titanium, Boron, and Vanadium for Additive Manufacturing

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is unclear, how did authors detected B concentration in the formed powders by EDS methods? EDS does not allow to identify light-weight elements such as B, Li, H; the first element could be detected with high mistake is C. Authors write about 1.2 wt.% of B in NiSiTiB powder (table 3). How did they get this number?

Also, C concentrations are doubtful too. It is impossible to measure carbon concentration by EDS method with the accuracy up to the second decimal place. The only way is to use ethalon materials, but authors do not write about such approach. This should be explained.

Figs. 10 and 11. There is clearly seen microstructure of the obtained powder particles, but authors do not describe it. This should be corrected.

Fig. 12. XRD-patterns were identified not completely. There are unidentified reflexes in all the patterns. Also, authors should mark all the identified crystallographic planes with Miller's indexes.

Fig. 12. caption. Looks like there is a misprint: "powders with additions of Co, Ti, Bo, V, and/or V."

Fig. 13. There is no phase identifiaction in XRD-pattern. This should be corrected.

Discussion part is not obvious. Authors cite literature data, but not discuss the obtained results, do not compare them.

There are only 3 references published in last five years. Also all the list of references is very short. This should be corrected.

I would recommend authors to carerfully read all the text again. There are misprints and mistakes.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper presents the gas atomized Nickel Silicide powders alloyed with Molyb-denum, Cobalt, Titanium, Boron, and Vanadium for additive manufacturing. Some issues need to be addressed as following:

1. How to ensure a change in the fracture mode of the NiSi printed parts from intergran-ular to transgranular?

2. Please explain the relationship between the ductility of the powder and the ductility of the built parts?

3. What is the relationship between the surface roughness of the powder particles and the built parts? And how to control the surface roughness of the powder particles?

4. Does the diameter of the powder particles affect the quality of the built parts? How to control the diameters of the powder particles?

5. What does the ordinate of Figure 16 represent?

The English writing of the paper needs to be polished.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

1. Need more work on the literature review and Introduction section.

2. The references list is too short.

3. Section 7. Future work should be combined with the conclusion section.

4. Figure 16. no need to repeat the legend on the figure caption. 

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Fig. 10. Both images a and b are of the same scale,  but figure caption is "... at the (a) 100-um scale and (b) 20 um scale". This should be corrected.

Authors commented microstructure of powders' particles clearly visible in figs. 10 and 11 in the response, but did not even try to mention this microstructure within the text of the manuscript. This should be corrected.

It is still unclear, how did authors detected boron with EDS method. Is it possible? Author should explain this within the text of manuscript.

Fig. 12. There are still unidentified reflexes in XRD-patterns. This means, that there are some other phases. Authors should identify those phases.

Fig. 12 caption. As far as I understand, authors writing Bo symbols mean boron . This should be corrected and authors are recommended to carefully read all the text again.

Fig. 13. XRD-pattern is identified only partly. There are at least two unidentified phases. What are those phases? Authors do not write anything about them. This should be corrected.

Authors should carefully read all the manuscript one more time.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript was significantly imroved and could be published

Author Response

Thank you for accepting this.