Evaluation of the Geo-Mechanical Properties Property Recovery in Time of Conditioned Soil for EPB-TBM Tunneling
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is well-written. All issues have been addressed adequately.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper deals with a subject that falls within the scope of the journal, but the manuscript needs improvements concerning the overall presentation. Overall, the article should be written more clearly. 1. The abstract should be more concise, and I suggest authors provide the methodology and main results. 2. In line 22 - there is an abbreviation. This is unacceptable. 3. There is no background in this introduction stating the urge and novelty of the study in which innovative ideas must be flown through the background along with the useful insights The introduction must be improved. In introduction, please review the previous studies. For instance, are there studies similar to this study out there? If so what are they, and how does this research relate to extant literature? Or is this one of the very first studies in this area? It is worth to mention that the authors do not include any kind of literature review, this is an important weakness for an academic paper. 4. Line 46 - should be 2.1. not 3.1. The whole chapter 2 has a bad numbering 5. What means “(…) in Figure 1 (right)…..”? What means “right”? What means “(…) in Figure 1 (left)…..”? What means “left”?. In academic works, the notation Figure 1a or Figure 1b should be used 6. In Chapter 3 there are no comments on the results obtained. 7. There is no statistical analysis of the research results. 8. Chapter 4 contains an incorrect discussion of the results. This chapter adds nothing to the research work. 9. There are no conclusions in the manuscript. The conclusions are not supported by research results. 10. Finally, they do not point to any of the clear limitations that this study shows. 11. For all that has been discussed before, I would recommend to the authors further development of their present work. 12. No scientific outcome and lack of contribution is a major barrier for this paper.Author Response
- Abstract revised;
- The abbreviation has been replaced with the extended form;
- Additional insights about the importance of the problem have been given, additional literature has been included;
- Replaced with 2.1 and the following chapter numbers;
- Replaced with the correct notation;
- A comment on the result are given in each sub-chapter of the chapter 3;
- The statistical analysis has not been performed since it is a case study and the number of data is not sufficient for a statistical approach;
- Chapter 4 was erroneously named “Discussion”, it has been renamed “Conclusions”. The chapter “Results” and “Discussion” have been merged. The discussion of results has been improved;
- The chapter “Conclusions” has been improved;
- The limitations presented by this procedure have been stated in chapter 1 “Due to the different orders of magnitude existing between the dimensions of laboratory samples and the volume of the storage tanks in the jobsite, there will be needed some adjustment to take into account the scale effect.”.
- Thank you for your comment.
- Thank you for your comment.
Reviewer 3 Report
English must be improved, mainly word order and sentence structure are so complicated and sometimes terminology must be more precise. The quality of figures 2, 5 and 6 are not in a standard of the scientific article. You used agents for curing soil samples (products A, B and C), but in the article missing any technical data or chemical base or more description. Therefore, it cannot be compared or evaluated with other similar researches.
r.9 sentence is complicated, not clear for readers without knowledge in tunnelling, EPB abbreviation must be described,
r.9 sentence is complicated, not clear for readers without knowledge in tunnelling, EPB abbreviation must be described,
r.19 EPB tunnelling?
r.26 behaviour – Britain English
r. 37 direct shear tests, Proctor Standard tests … tests – plural (Standard or Modified?)
r.40 … on the jobsite is difficult to artificially? modify …
r.46 3.1 wrong numbering
r.50 and has been determined that the fines are not plastic – please rewrite, it is not correct from Soil mechanics terminology
Figure 1 – vertical axis legend “passing %”?
r.53 combination of citation style – use only one.
r.54 meaning of abbreviation FER FIR is not described?
r.61 rewrite sentence
r.62 w=0% is theoretical value – in practice after drying only
r.66 – specify Proctor type?
r.67 0/4.75 use decimal separator “.”, and describe which size of direct shear box was used?
r.70 conditions
r.73 Wrong numbering 2.1.1
r.74 consists in
r.78 and the The test has
r.85 The Proctor modified test – change order
r.94-95 rewrite sentence, because it is the same at r. 101-102
r.105 In Figure 3 are given
r.106 you have to better describe samples A, B C or which agents was used
r.108 recovery
r.110 word order in title of the PM test
r.113 the 3 conditioning – no number
r.114 superimposed to the bell?
r.127 Figure 6 28 daysi what is serie4? use j instead of F
Figure 7 a) at legend natural
r.133 rewrite sentence
r.138 has
r.149 – 154 Author’s contribution can be simplified
Author Response
r.9 Abbreviation has been described;
r.19 EPB tunnelling is correct;
r.26 Replaced with behaviour;
r.37 Replaced with plurals and “modified” has been added;
r.40 “on the jobsite is difficult to artificially modify” has been replaced with “on the jobsite is difficult to modify”;
r.46 Chapter numbers have been adjusted;
Figure 1 adjusted;
r.50 “not plastic” has been replaced with “non-plastic”, the sentence has been adjusted;
r.53 “Peila et al. (2019) [2]” has been replaced with “Peila et al. [2]”;
r.54 meaning of FER and FIR has been described. Also the meaning of wtot and c has been added;
r.61 “To have values to which compare the parameters measured on the conditioned soil, a set of test have to be performed on the natural soil for a set of water content ranging from 0% to the total water content.” has been changed with “To have reference values for the parameters measured on the conditioned soil, a set of test has to be performed on the natural soil for a set of water contents ranging from 0% to the total water content.”
r.62 Exactly, we performed the tests also on material right after drying;
r.66 “Proctor” has been changed with “modified Proctor”;
r.67 Decimal separator “.” used, dimension and type of shear box added;
r.70 “Condition” has been replaced with “conditions”;
r.73 Chapter numbers have been adjusted;
r.74 “consists in” has been used;
r.78 “the The” has been replaced with “the”;
r.85 “Proctor modified test” has been replaced with “modified Proctor test”;
r.94-95 the sentence has been erased. The sentence at r.101-102 has been modified in “Both the results obtained from vane tests and direct shear tests have been compared to the ones obtained on the natural soil at the same water content of the cured sample of conditioned soil.”;
r.105 “In Figure 3 are given” has been used;
r.106 A description of conditioning agents has been added;
r.108 “recover” has been replaced with “recovery”;
r.110 The word order is now correct;
r.113 “3” has been replaced with “three”;
r.114 “superimposed to the bell” has been changed with “plotted together the bell”;
r.127 Figures and legends have been adjusted;
r.133 The sentence has been replaced with “From the results given in Table 2 it is possible to observe that the values reached at 28 days are stable up to 60 days. Hence it is possible to deduce that the cohesion will not be completely recovered.”;
r.138 “have” has been replaced with “has”;
r.149 Simplified where possible.
Reviewer 4 Report
The manuscript presents a comprehensive account of laboratory experiments on soil samples. The procedure is useful in praxis. I suggest for the manuscript to be submitted as a technical note. To be classified as an original journal paper much more elaboration and foundation of the procedure on fundamental physical properties of soils is needed.
Author Response
Thank you for your comment.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Unfortunately, the submitted manuscript still does not meet the requirements for academic work.
The structure of the paper should include the following sections: introduction, materials and method, results, discussion and conclusions.
Abstract is not written correctly. I suggest authors provide the methodology, main results. The current structure is incorrect. Abstract mainly includes a background description.
Too many references including in bulk without knowing the contribution to the research and the manuscript of [1-10], [12-15] and so on. Please specify the relevant information of the references and, when it is required, the lack of knowledge that the manuscript pretend to cover. There is no background in this introduction stating the urge and novelty of the study in which innovative ideas must be flown through the background along with the useful insights The introduction must be improved. In introduction, please review the previous studies. For instance, are there studies similar to this study out there? If so what are they, and how does this research relate to extant literature? Or is this one of the very first studies in this area? It is worth to mention that the authors do not include any kind of literature review, this is an important weakness for an academic paper. What is the novelty for this article compared with existing studies? What is the novelty of this article? In section 1, still the research problem and purpose of this study were not described clearly. This remark was made in the previous round of reviews - the authors did not correct it.
Section 3 contains only the test results. There is no discussion of the research results in this chapter. Presenting the results means nothing, if you do not discuss them in detail. Finally, they do not point to any of the clear limitations that this study shows.
There are no conclusions at work. Section 4 is a summary, not a conclusion. The number of references is insufficient. The authors did not do a literature review.
For all that has been discussed before, I would recommend to the authors further development of their present work.
Author Response
Comment 1: Unfortunately, the submitted manuscript still does not meet the requirements for academic work.
We are sorry about this comment and we have improved the paper following the reviewer's suggestions
Comment 2: The structure of the paper should include the following sections: introduction, materials and method, results, discussion and conclusions.
The structure of the paper It has been updated following this structure
Comment 3: Abstract is not written correctly. I suggest authors provide the methodology, main results. The current structure is incorrect. Abstract mainly includes a background description.
The abstract already contained the background
The methodology description (already existing) has been made more clear
Comment 4.1: Too many references including in bulk without knowing the contribution to the research and the manuscript of [1-10], [12-15] and so on. Please specify the relevant information of the references and, when it is required, the lack of knowledge that the manuscript pretend to cover.
The references have been better addressed in the texts
Comment 4.2: There is no background in this introduction stating the urge and novelty of the study in which innovative ideas must be flown through the background along with the useful insights The introduction must be improved.
In the Introduction this was already clearly stated
Comment 4.3: In introduction, please review the previous studies.
For instance, are there studies similar to this study out there? If so what are they, and how does this research relate to extant literature? Or is this one of the very first studies in this area? It is worth to mention that the authors do not include any kind of literature review, this is an important weakness for an academic paper.
We already made comments on the very limited number of previous studies. We have improved the style of the comments probably non understood by the reviewer. The scope of the paper is not to make a literature review on the coils conditioning that is very wide as shown by the many works done by the authors in this filed in the last 15 years and the purpose of the paper is not to make a literature review on this topic.
The key topic of the paper has been little investigated as clearly stated in the text.
Comment 4.4: What is the novelty for this article compared with existing studies? What is the novelty of this article? In section 1, still the research problem and purpose of this study were not described clearly. This remark was made in the previous round of reviews - the authors did not correct it.
The purpose of the study was clearly assessed. We have done a detailed literature review but of the reviews know some papers that we have not found it could be important if he send to us this information.
Comment 5.1: Section 3 contains only the test results. There is no discussion of the research results in this chapter.
Presenting the results means nothing, if you do not discuss them in detail. Finally, they do not point to any of the clear limitations that this study shows.
The results have been shortly but clearly discussed. The limitations have been discussed
Comment 5.2: There are no conclusions at work. Section 4 is a summary, not a conclusion. The number of references is insufficient. The authors did not do a literature review.
The conclusion has been improved. Regarding the review, we have done it if we have not found some paper it is interesting to have this information even if it is a paper of the reviewer.
Reviewer 3 Report
There were corrected errors and English was improved too, the article has better scientific soundness now.
Some formal errors are still there:
Add more keywords: egg. TBM machines
r.11 behaviour (UK English style) behavior (US style) – unify term in all article, because there are two variants,
r. 25 put abbreviation Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM),
r. 77 Undeground,
r. 92 350 mm*250 mm with an high 200 mm ?
r. 96 signaled
r.183 geo-mechanic properties (geo-mechanical)
r.186 geothecnical
Figure 7 legend Codnitioned soil – Product A Cohesion of the natuarl soil
Table 2 if cohesion is effective for drained conditions, then indicate same at friction angle φ´
r.165 4.5. Rotational mixer test - wrong numbering
Author Response
There were corrected errors and English was improved too, the article has better scientific soundness now.
Some formal errors are still there:
Add more keywords: egg. TBM machines
The keyword has been added.
r.11 behaviour (UK English style) behavior (US style) – unify term in all article, because there are two variants,
The style has been checked.
- 25 put abbreviation Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM),
The abbreviation has been added
- 77 Undeground,
The complete name of our laboratory has been added, Tunneling and Underground Space Centre (TUSC) Laboratory
- 92 350 mm*250 mm with an high 200 mm?
It has been replaced with “350 mm*250 mm and a thickness of 200 mm”
- 96 signaled
It has been replaced with “noticed”
r.183 geo-mechanic properties (geo-mechanical)
The correction has been made
r.186 geothecnical
It has been changed with “geotechnical”
Figure 7 legend Codnitioned soil – Product A Cohesion of the natuarl soil
The corrections have been made
Table 2 if cohesion is effective for drained conditions, then indicate same at friction angle φ´
The correction has been made
r.165 4.5. Rotational mixer test - wrong numbering
The correction has been made
Reviewer 4 Report
The manuscript has been improved. From a quick look, I could recommend acceptance.
Author Response
Thank you for your comment
