Torsional Improvement of RC Beams Using Various Strengthening Systems

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript (entitled: Torsional Improvement of RC Beams using Various Strengthening Systems) pays main attention to the experimental and numerical study of the different strengthening techniques to enhance the torsional capacity of reinforced concrete beams. To verify the outcomes of the experimental tests, a finite-element program abaqus is used. Finally, an excellent agreement between the experimental and numerical results was obtained.

This paper can be accepted for publication.

Author Response

The manuscript (entitled: Torsional Improvement of RC Beams using Various Strengthening Systems) pays main attention to the experimental and numerical study of the different strengthening techniques to enhance the torsional capacity of reinforced concrete beams. To verify the outcomes of the experimental tests, a finite-element program abaqus is used. Finally, an excellent agreement between the experimental and numerical results was obtained. This paper can be accepted for publication.

Author's reply: Thank you very much

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

“Torsional Improvement of RC Beams using Various Strengthening Systems” The article is interesting. A few observations are given below,

1) An abstract is a short summary of your completed research. It is intended to describe your work without going into great detail. Abstracts should be self-contained and concise, explaining your work as briefly and clearly as possible. The abstract should provide an overview of proposed methods/methodology, materials with obtained results in the form of quantitative values. 

 

2) Some more latest studies are required in the introduction section to further highlight the importance of this study. Following article is include for the reference of the authors to improve the introduction section. 

 

Saleem, M. U., Qureshi, H. J., Amin, M. N., Khan, K., & Khurshid, H. (2019). Cracking behavior of RC beams strengthened with different amounts and layouts of CFRP. Applied Sciences, 9(5), 1017.

 

In general, the quality of figures is poor, and authors must improve the quality of the page setups to keep the quality of the journal. 

 

3) Provided graphs in the result section is not clear, Authors must carefully rename the axis without disturbing the shown results. 

 

4) It is necessary to provide the license in the reference section used FE software “ABAQUS”. 

 

5) Section 7 “Comparison of the experimental and finite element findings” must summarized results in more systematic way with reference to the previous studies and comparison results must be explained in more clear way with experimental results and FE results. 

 

6) It is suggested to highlight the limitations of this study, suggested improvements of this work and future directions in the conclusion section. Also, the conclusion can be presented better than the present form with more findings.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank the reviewers for the time and effort they devoted to reviewing our paper. An itemized list of the author's responses to the comments raised by the reviewers is provided below. The corrections or modifications are colored ( in red ) in the new version of the paper to ease revision.

“Torsional Improvement of RC Beams using Various Strengthening Systems” The article is interesting. A few observations are given below,

1) An abstract is a short summary of your completed research. It is intended to describe your work without going into great detail. Abstracts should be self-contained and concise, explaining your work as briefly and clearly as possible. The abstract should provide an overview of proposed methods/methodology, materials with obtained results in the form of quantitative values.

Author's reply: Thanks a lot for your valuable comment. The abstract section has been modified.

2) Some more latest studies are required in the introduction section to further highlight the importance of this study. Following article is include for the reference of the authors to improve the introduction section.

Saleem, M. U., Qureshi, H. J., Amin, M. N., Khan, K., & Khurshid, H. (2019). Cracking behavior of RC beams strengthened with different amounts and layouts of CFRP. Applied Sciences, 9(5), 1017.

In general, the quality of figures is poor, and authors must improve the quality of the page setups to keep the quality of the journal.

Author's reply: Thanks a lot for your valuable comment. The ref. has been added in the last of the introduction section with red color and the quality of the figures have enhanced.

3) Provided graphs in the result section is not clear, Authors must carefully rename the axis without disturbing the show results.

Author's reply: Thanks a lot for your valuable comment. Done throught the manuscript with red color.

4) It is necessary to provide the license in the reference section used FE software “ABAQUS”.

Author's reply: Thanks a lot for your valuable comment. Explained in the reference section with red color.

5) Section 7 “Comparison of the experimental and finite element findings” must summarized results in more systematic way with reference to the previous studies and comparison results must be explained in more clear way with experimental results and FE results.

Author's reply: Thanks a lot for your valuable comment. Some explanations have been done in section 7 with red color.

6) It is suggested to highlight the limitations of this study, suggested improvements of this work and future directions in the conclusion section. Also, the conclusion can be presented better than the present form with more findings.

Author's reply: Thanks a lot for your valuable comment. Research limitations have been added in section 5.1 in the text with red color. Future work has been added after the conclusion section in the text with red color. The conclusion section has been modified.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The article addresses an important and very interesting topic of the torsional improvement of RC beams using various strengthening systems, which is appreciated. The study includes the experimental and numerical research. In this paper, of purpose of this study was to determine experimentally and numerically the most effective system for strengthening RC beams under pure torsion. In addition, the numerical analysis of the finite element models was carried out using ABAQUS software. The Reviewer has some concerns regarding to the results, numerical modelling, conclusions and references. Generally, in this paper the English language should be improved (some sentences in opinion of Reviewer are hard to understand), thus check the text of Native Speaker. In opinion of Reviewer this paper should be subjected to minor revision.

Other comments:

1. Paper

In my opinion this paper is very interesting but was prepared carelessly. If Authors will able to improve this paper as below papers, thus their paper will be much more clearly. Examples very good papers:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tust.2020.103808

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2021.104245

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2020.106484

2. Numerical modelling

The Reviewer cannot see the nonlinear analysis. In the introduction (last part) was mentioned about nonlinear analysis.

In opinion of Reviewer the numerical model in this paper is very simple, and the interaction between steel reinforcement was not take into account. Please explain this aspect.

3. References

This part should be improved. Generally, the scientific paper should be based on the literature from all world, thus please check the literature from the best Journals. You should add the literature about numerical analysis, RC beam reinforcement etc.

Finally, I hope that my comments will be helpful for Authors.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank the reviewers for the time and effort they devoted to reviewing our paper. An itemized list of the author's responses to the comments raised by the reviewers is provided below. The corrections or modifications are underlined and colored ( in red ) in the new version of the paper to ease revision.

In my opinion this paper is very interesting but was prepared carelessly. If Authors will able to improve this paper as below papers, thus their paper will be much more clearly. Examples very good papers:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tust.2020.103808

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2021.104245

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2020.106484

Author's reply: Authors apologize for not adding these papers in the previous studies section in the introduction because they are not suitable for the topic of the research. Please accept the apology.

2. Numerical modeling. The Reviewer cannot see the nonlinear analysis. In the introduction (last part) was mentioned about nonlinear analysis. In opinion of Reviewer the numerical model in this paper is very simple, and the interaction between steel reinforcement was not take into account. Please explain this aspect.

Author's reply: Thanks a lot for your valuable comment. More details of nonlinear analysis were explained in section 6. Some explanations have been done in section 6.1.2 to explain the interactions between reinforcement and concrete. More numerical analysis Ref. were explained in the Ref. section with red color.

3. References

This part should be improved. Generally, the scientific paper should be based on the literature from all world, thus please check the literature from the best Journals. You should add the literature about numerical analysis, RC beam reinforcement etc.

Author's reply: Thanks a lot for your valuable comment. Some ref. has been added in the reference section in the text with red color.

Finally, I hope that my comments will be helpful for Authors.

Author's reply: Thank you very much.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf