Experimental Investigations of the Seismic Response of a Large Underground Structure at a Soft Loess Site
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Important study - significant results that can be used in the design of underground infrastructures. Congratulations to the authors. I suggest expanding the list of bibliographic referencesAuthor Response
Thanks for your comments. The list of bibliographic references has been expanded. We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Reviewer 2 Report
The article addresses an important and very interesting topic of experimental investigations of the seismic response of a large underground structure in soft loess site, which is appreciated. The study includes the experimental research. In this study on the underground structures in a soft loess site, and the seismic responses of the site soil and underground structure were investigated, and the damage mechanism of the underground structures in soft loess site under strong earthquakes was explored. The Reviewer has some concerns regarding to the introduction, results, discussion, conclusions and references. Generally, in this paper the English language should be checked by the Native Speaker. Some sentences are not clear and too long. In opinion of Reviewer this paper should be subjected to major revision.
Other comments:
1. What is novelty in this paper? Based on description of your research in introduction it can be concluded, that novelty is not clear. Please improve it.
2. Generally, the introduction and state of the art it can be acceptable but the Reviewer cannot see the latest paper from this area (from last 5 year). Please improve it.
Below you can find some examples about SSI effect (not only tunnels) or where the SSI effect is very important under seismic excitations:
· https://doi.org/10.1016/j.istruc.2022.09.070
· https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2023.105956
· https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2022.107744
3. Line 54-63 should be improved according the latest paper from this are i.e. numerical/seismic analysis.
4. In the Figure 4 it was shown the profile of SSI effect, could you explain this aspect with more detail. In current version is not clear. In addition, please explain how scaled the SSI effect (line 327-328).
5. Please add the Figures with Time History of accelerations/displacements. In current version of this paper we cannot evaluate the real seismic effect and response of this structure.
6. The word of “uplift” – is correct?
7. Where is discussion of results and their comparison of other similar papers/results?
8. The conclusions are very general, without scientific point of view. Please improve it.
9. What is next step of your research. Please add.
10. Reference is really poor. Please improve it with papers from last five years. You can add papers from point 2 or other paper from seismic analysis.
Finally, I hope that my comments will be helpful for Authors.
Generally, in this paper the English language should be checked by the Native Speaker.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
With rapid urbanization, many underground structures would be built in seismic area with adverse geological conditions. This manuscript investigated the seismic response of subway station in soft loess site. This study is meaningful and has led to some valuable conclusions. The manuscript could be accepted for publication after revision in light of the comments below.
1. Question 1: This paper should provide the groundwater information.
2. Question 2: More mechanical parameters of the loess soil need to be provided in the manuscript.
3. Question 3: The authors should provide additional information regarding the experiment, such as the treatment of soil box boundaries.
4. Question 6: How the soil strata were considered in the shake table testing?
5. Question 4: The peak accelerations input in the shaker table test were 0.20 g, 0.40 g, 0.80 g and 1.20 g. Are the acceleration peaks in the table converted by a similarity relation?
6. Question 5: It is suggested that the numbers in the legend of Figures 7-10 be changed to peak acceleration, e.g. RG1-H to RG-H-0.20g.
7. Question 7: Section 2. It is highly recommended that the authors to provide an explanation of the seismic response characteristics of the engineering structures in soft loess site
8. Question 8: The paper had some tense issues. The authors should review the entire paper to eliminate them.
Please improve the English language of this manuscript.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
thank you for your improving. The quality of this paper is higher. My last suggestion, please read more papers of Authors , which were proposed before. Maybe other papers of these Authors will be interesting on you.
