Effect of Frictional Conditions on the Generation of Fine Grain Layers in Drawing of Thin Steel Wires
, Guzel Atangulova 1, Sergei Alexandrov 2,4 and Lihui Lang 2,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript entitled “Effect of frictional conditions on the generation of 3 fine grain layers in drawing of thin steel wires” present a work related with frictional conditions effect of the generation of fine grain layers. It is an interesting work but there are several issues that have to be addressed:
1. In the Conceptual approach part it is not clear how much is imported from other papers published by Alexandrov et all. and how much is new;
2. The authors claim that the grains size is between 5 and 30 micrometer. In Figure 1 there is no clear evidence of the grain formation as well as the size of the “grains”.
3. Same observation for Figure 3. Where are the so called “grains”. Higher resolution figures are required otherwise all we can see are aggregates.
4. Where are the results interpretation. It is only one paragraph of discussion on pag. 9 which is insufficient. The authors must explain the results and make correlation between them. Otherwise the paper have no consistence.
5. The English language need important revision.
6. More than 35% of the references are self-citation. Is too much.
Author Response
1. In the Conceptual approach part it is not clear how much is imported from other papers published by Alexandrov et all. and how much is new;
Answer: Of course, there is no difference in the general conceptual approach between the present paper and previous papers. The role of this section is to emphasize unsolved issues. In particular, “There are at least three issues that should be resolved for the further development of the approach [14]” and the text below. Of course, we have to repeat some statements/conclusions that have been already published to demonstrate what should be done.
2. The authors claim that the grains size is between 5 and 30 micrometer. In Figure 1 there is no clear evidence of the grain formation as well as the size of the “grains”.
Answer. Figure 1 is corrected. Grains are outlined and their size is indicated.
3. Same observation for Figure 3. Where are the so called “grains”. Higher resolution figures are required otherwise all we can see are aggregates.
Answer. Figure 3 is corrected. Deformed and not deformed grains are outlined.
4. Where are the results interpretation. It is only one paragraph of discussion on pag. 9 which is insufficient. The authors must explain the results and make correlation between them. Otherwise the paper have no consistence.
Answer. The results interpretation was detailed. The corrections are inserted in the text and highlighted beneath in Italics.
From the data in Table 3, Figure 10 and Figure 11 it is evident that at thin wire drawing the increase of die semi-angle from 40 to 60at soft friction conditions leads to the increase of the depth of the layer of severe plastic deformations from 29.7 µm to 36.4 µm. Even so for medium and hard friction conditions the affect of die semi-angle is not evident because in this case the depth of the layer change not more than 1-2 µm.
For soft friction conditions the interesting fact can be stated. With increase of die semi-angle the length of contact surface between carbon steel wire and the die (tool) decreases. At the same time, despite the contact surface decrease, the thickness of the layer increases. It is the unexpected result. It was assumed earlier that at drawing the increase of contact length between the wire and the die had to result in the intensive wear of the die and formation of the thicker layer. This result needs further theoretical justification.
From the obtained results it is obvious that for all values of die semi-angle the friction conditions deterioration results in the decrease of the depth of layer of severe plastic deformations. At the same time for drawing with die semi-angle 40 at friction conditions worsening the layer depth decreases insignificantly from 29.7 µm to 27.9 µm. At wire drawing with die semi-angle 50 the considerable decrease of layer depth occurs from 34.9 µm to 28.3 µm, and at wire drawing with die semi-angle 60 the layer depth change from 36.4 µm to 27.7 µm.
It can be explained in the following way. At soft drawing conditions the absolute value of the layer of severe plastic deformations is larger than at medium and hard friction conditions. Herewith, probably the indicator of the deformation intensity inside the layer is higher at medium and hard friction conditions. In other words, deformation localizes on the wire surface at medium and hard friction conditions. It is observed in lower degree at soft friction conditions. It is necessary to analyze this effect theoretically and can be carried out during further investigations.
5. The English language need important revision.
Answer. We have done our best to correct the manuscript. The premium version of Grammarly has detected no formal grammatical errors. The English language was corrected.
6. More than 35% of the references are self-citation. Is too much.
Answer. The list of References was corrected. Four papers of authors were deleted. New citation were inserted in the list.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The work shows an experimental analysis of the effect of drawing steel wires on the grain structure.
The work is interesting and clearly explained. There are only some minor linguistic corrections needed (for example, I think that the form to+infinitive is more correct in most cases in this text than the for+gerund used extensively by the authors).
There are only some minor issue that can be raised:
- §3.2: Table 2 reports the test combinations: why are they chosen this way? In particular why the taper values were chosen from 4° to 6° (I mean, why not more or not less)
- same section: how many repetitions of the same experiment were performed? Do the authors have indications of the statistical significance of each test? Moreover, for each test the analysis describer in §3.4 is repeated in different points on the same wire or only in one point (I did not find indications on this)
- §3.5: the evaluation of the results is restricted to Figs. 10 and 11: aren't there any more possible analysis technique that helps explaining the influence of the parameters? (e.g. statistical, or regression, analysis)
- again in the same section: aren't there any theoretical or empirical explanation for the observed effects? This could help in understanding the phenomenon and have more insight into the problem.
Author Response
The work shows an experimental analysis of the effect of drawing steel wires on the grain structure.
The work is interesting and clearly explained. There are only some minor linguistic corrections needed (for example, I think that the form to+infinitive is more correct in most cases in this text than the for+gerund used extensively by the authors).
Answer. We do not agree that “to+infinitive” is a better style than “for+gerund” but we have replaced the latter with the former everywhere.
There are only some minor issue that can be raised:
- §3.2: Table 2 reports the test combinations: why are they chosen this way? In particular why the taper values were chosen from 4° to 6° (I mean, why not more or not less)
Answer. The die semi-angle 4° - 6° is used in practice of wire drawing at industrial scale. Dies with semi-angle les than 4° and more than 6° do not usually used for carbon steel wire manufacturing.
- same section: how many repetitions of the same experiment were performed? Do the authors have indications of the statistical significance of each test? Moreover, for each test the analysis describer in §3.4 is repeated in different points on the same wire or only in one point (I did not find indications on this)
Answer. Experiments were repeated three times at the same conditions. Three samples of carbon steel wire were obtained. Three measurements were made on each sample. As a result, nine values of the layer thickness were analyzed for each series of experiments.
- §3.5: the evaluation of the results is restricted to Figs. 10 and 11: aren't there any more possible analysis technique that helps explaining the influence of the parameters? (e.g. statistical, or regression, analysis)
Answer. Results of investigation we explain by data in graphs. Medium values of layer thickness were determined by statistical analysis of separate measurements. At present time the regression analysis is impractical. It can be estimated as the further development of this investigation.
- again in the same section: aren't there any theoretical or empirical explanation for the observed effects? This could help in understanding the phenomenon and have more insight into the problem.
Answer. This reviewer has correctly mentioned at the beginning of his/her review that the manuscript presents experimental analysis. The main difficulty with the quantitative connection of experimental results obtained using axisymmetric deformation and the general theoretical approach presented in Section 2 is that commercial FE packages are capable of calculating singular velocity fields. Therefore, it is only possible at the moment to collect experimental data and draw conclusions using such data. However, qualitative comparison is possible. We believe that Section 2 explains it.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The updates made by the author are sufficient. The paper can be published in the present form.
Author Response
Thanks for your comments.
