Prediction of Friction Resistance for Slurry Pipe Jacking

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is interesting and the capitulation of existing methods is a good idea. However, some parts appear to have been created in haste. For example, there are multiple paragraphs with the same paragraph number (Lines 138, 237, 299, 360 and 381). Also, part of the paper is written in caption formatting (Lines 307 till the end). The table captions do not begin with capital letters. Some captions need to be revised, for example for table 1, the caption is quite insufficient, "assumed parameters" is quite different from parameters proposed by National Standards such as those included in said table.

On another note, Table 4 and Figure 7 contain the same information. The authors should choose one of the two. Similarly for Table 5 and Figure 8. In the same paragraph, the difference between lines M7, M8...M13 of Table 4 and lines M7, M8 ...M13 of Table 5, appears to be the calculation of the normal force by equations 17 and 38. If that is correct, it should be more clearly stated. The entire paragraph should be revised; it is the most important paragraph since it validates the analytical model. All differences in calculations should be mentioned.   

The validation of the analytical model is only based on documented measurements. A finite element analysis should be used as well.

The language needs to be revised by a professional. It is comprehensible but still not acceptable for publishing.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments are provided in a word document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

manuscript presents study of friction resistance prediction for slurry pipe-jacking and the  new approach established in this paper can provide accuracy prediction of friction resistance for slurry pipe-jacking with various soil conditions, which lays a good foundation for better future design and less construction costs.

I am not an expert in this field, but I noticed several scientific mistakes.

There are several minor comments:

Chapter 2 has a lot of equations - are all of them neccesary?  In general Table. Caption -> you have Table. caption... Table 3 is braked - put it on single page. Use space between text, table, figure etc. There are twice chapter 3. ?! line 299 Also some text has different space between. 1.0 1.5, 1.15... space table 6 and chapter 3.1 figure 9  single page, also figure 10 figure 11 is missing conclusion starts with 3., also 3. List of notations - maybe put this before Introduction? Check reference list - use MDPI tamplate.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

I have read your response and re-read the revised manuscript. I will take your reponses one by one.

Accepted. All required changes have been performed Accepted. All required changes have been performed Accepted. There is however no need to remove the ratio columns from tables 4 and 5. It is better to provide the exact numbers apart from giving them in a diagram. I understand you wish to keep the graphs and why.  Not accepted. It is still not clear what the difference is in the derivation of M7-M13 in tables 4 and 5. You answered that they both use equation 17 and then you said the difference is that some use equation 17 and some use equation 20. Further, there has been no addition in the paper text to clarify this point. Partly accepted. I understand you do not want to embark on a numerical analysis to validate your analysis. You do not have to, you can use the numerical analyses from your references and simply take their results. Your rich references contain papers where numerical analysis is used, for example in your reference Ji X.B. et al, 2019 there is a numerical model and a case study. Others can be found, for example "Xinbo Ji, Pengpeng Ni, Marco Barla, 2019. Analysis of jacking forces during pipe jacking in granular materials using particle methods, Underground Space Volume 4, Issue 4, December 2019, Pages 277-288" who also have numerical modelling of a case study. Cross verifying with another author will fortify your method greatly. Partly accepted. There have been some changes but the language is still inadequate. For example, in several cases, you use the word frictions. The noun friction is uncountable. The plural form of friction is also friction. What you mean is angles of friction. The work of a reviewer is not to correct grammatical, syntax or other errors. However, I include photocopy of your manuscript with as many corrections as I could do to help you.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment of Word file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

All required ameliorations have been performed. The paper may be published.