Electromagnetic Acoustic Detection of Steel Plate Defects Based on High-Energy Pulse Excitation
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
this is the second review of the article. The article has been significantly improved:
- Authors have added the picture of the experimental test stand in part 5.
- Authors explained the repeatability of tests and results for other materials, e.g. aluminum, in response to the first review of this article.
- Authors have added directions of further work in conclusion of the article.
- Some editorial errors have been corrected.
However I have found some editorial errors that should be improved.
Line 225, 226 and 231, 232 - drawing caption should be justified as in figure 4 (now is centered).
In my opinion, after correction of editorial errors the article "Electromagnetic Acoustic Detection of Steel Plate Defects Based on High-energy Pulse Excitation" can be published in the Applied Sciences journal.
Author Response
Point 1:
Dear authors,
This is the second review of the article. The article has been significantly improved:
Authors have added the picture of the experimental test stand in part 5.
Authors explained the repeatability of tests and results for other materials, e.g. aluminum, in response to the first review of this article.
Authors have added directions of further work in conclusion of the article.
Some editorial errors have been corrected.
However I have found some editorial errors that should be improved.
Line 225, 226 and 231, 232 - drawing caption should be justified as in figure 4 (now is centered).
In my opinion, after correction of editorial errors the article "Electromagnetic Acoustic Detection of Steel Plate Defects Based on High-energy Pulse Excitation" can be published in the Applied Sciences journal.
Response 1:
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your reminder about the format of drawing captions. Since the review of the manuscript, thank you for your comments to make our article improved.
The author has corrected the format of drawing captions in Line 225, 226 and 231, 232. And the revised content has marked in red font in the article.
Best regards.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for including the comments in your manuscript. The manuscript looks good and is ready to be published.
Author Response
Point 1:
Thank you for including the comments in your manuscript. The manuscript looks good and is ready to be published.
Response 1:
Since the review of the manuscript, thank you for your comments about the article that allowed our paper to be revised and supplemented.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The Authors presented a nice paper concerning the realisation of a high-power circuit to excite an EMAT transducer for ultrasonic guided wave generation.
Simulations and experiments well-agree together. I have only some minor suggestions. I kindly ask the authors to say more about:
- The model used in FEM simulation. Does it consider any non-linear effect? The amplitude is quite high and I can see a small phase difference between the simulated standard EMAT and the high-power one. Can the Author comment on this?
- Can the author say more about the standard EMAT simulation parameter?
- Can the author show the FFT of the received simulated signal just as they have shown the time handling?
- Can the Author perform some experiment/simulation by decreasing the amplitude pk-to-pk power? The power is very high and I think some non-linear, which can be also beneficial, may be arising.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for your review.
I have responded to your comments one by one and the content of the response is in the attachment.
Best regards.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I am fairly certain that I have reviewed this paper previously and rejected it on the grounds that it did not add sufficient new scientific knowledge or insight. There is nothing in this paper that would change my view and the paper should be rejected.
The work itself looks sound enough, but it simply adds little to nothing in terms of the scientific literature.
I think that I can remember in a previous review of these authors's work I suggested that they made significant changes to the English - one thing that stands out in my memory is the misuse of the word "crackle" instead of "crack". The authors didn't even bother to correct that from the last time I saw a paper from them.
The use of high currents through a coil to generate the magnetic field required for EMAT detection with the Lorentz force was presented previously by Reuter in 2014 [ref 24 in the paper]. Reuter even provided a very detailed circuit diagram in their paper.
Other others have reported using a spark gap. Spark gaps are by their nature variable in their rise time and amplitude, but by forming a resonant circuit, one if able to get a decaying oscillation as the authors report and others have done so much earlier. Again, there is nothing really new in that aspect of the work.
Whilst 1.7kA is indeed a high current to use in an EMAT coil, Tkcoz published a paper in 2018 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ndteint.2019.102142) that demonstrated an EMAT current pulse of 1.75kA, from 4 different coils to make a phased array, and that was done using a more controllable, reliable and lower noise solid state circuit, as opposed to a spark gap.
So, the work looks sound in this paper - it does suffer from poor English to some extent, but it can't be published as there is just not enough new science or technology there. It is simply not enough to do an experiment well - it needs some originality or significant improvement and difference to the existing body of published work.
I would encourage the authors to continue research in this general direction, but maybe to look for an aspect that would make a significant contribution to the published science.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for your review.
I have responded to your comments one by one and the content of the response is in the attachment.
Best regards,
Suzhen Liu
The corresponding author
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
In this paper, a study has been conducted on how the coil and eddy current interaction generates the transduction mechanism of the dynamic, strong magnetic field and excites the acoustic wave in the steel plate without utilizing any magnet. To prove the point, the authors have designed a new high-energy acoustic excitation system and performed experiments to enhance the ultrasonic lift-off characteristics and defect detection. Numerical simulation has also been conducted to compare the results. When compared with the traditional EMAT (that relies on the static magnetic field created by magnets), the high-energy pulsed EMAT reduces the attenuation of the acoustic signal effect and enhances the damage detection of ferromagnetic materials.
Introduction
The introduction is generally in a good shape. However, more recent studies can be referenced and discussed. As an example, one 2019 study, discussed the high power phased EMAT arrays:
“High power phased EMAT arrays for nondestructive testing of as-cast steel” by Jozef TKocz
And notice this 2020 study:
“Small electromagnetic acoustic transducer with an enhanced unique magnet configuration” by Hongjun Sun
How does your study differ with this one?
Theory
- Using bold-face lower case letters for vectors and bold-faced uppercase letters for matrices is usually standard. Equation (5) and (7) show derivative “d” as a vector/matrix, while in equation (10) “d” is bold-faced and the piezoelectric magnetic matrix. Please revise.
- Please provide appropriate references for the first paragraph (99-106) and equation (1).
Finite element simulation:
The FE simulation has been conducted to show the strength of high-energy pulsed EMAT. The reviewer believes showing how these results compare with the simulation using traditional EMAT and exactly the same simulation set-up. Comparative graphs need to be created to show the differences between the two methods transparently.
Experiment
Please include a picture of the high-energy pulsed EMAT setup.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for your review.
I have responded to your comments one by one and the content of the response is in the attachment.
Best regards,
Suzhen Liu
The corresponding author
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
Based on the reading of your work in my opinion you obtain a valuable paper in a topic related to electromagnetic acoustic detection of steel plate
defects based on high-energy pulse excitation. Authors used the new one high-energy acoustic excitation system without any magnets. I recognize the efforts Authors have put into this work and experiment. However, in my opinion the manuscript needs to be improved.
Evaluation of the paper, general remarks:
In introduction the Authors present general information about ElectroMagnetic Acoustic Transducer characteristics. EMAT is an ultrasonic testing technique used to generate the sound in the part inspected instead of the transducer. The Authors presented the possibilities of this method and limitations in the scope of assessment of steel element cracks. A list of references showing the current state of the art in this topic is sufficient.
The second chapter of the manuscript includes readable description of electromagnetic acoustic excitation transduction mechanism of ferromagnetic materials excited by the high-energy pulse. In this chapter the theoretical basis of the experiment were described. Then the simulation analysis is presented in section 3. Main result of this analysis was the relation between displacement amplitude (for logarithm of S0 mode and A0 mode) and lift-off distance. Chapter 4 and 5 are connected with experiment. In section 5 Authors should add a view of the test stand during the experiment (presentation only the schemes is not enough).
What about repeatability of your measurement? Did you try repeat the measurement? Did you try to test another cracks (other dimensions of the crack, other dimensions of the sample)? I believe that this part of the article should be modified and supplemented with more examples of using the method, thus confirming its effectiveness.
Section named "Conclusion" should be numbered as 6. Also in this paragraph the authors should describe the directions of further work.
Specific remarks/editorial comments:
line 26 - is "A0 mode Lamb waves caused have a high signal", should be A0 mode Lamb waves have caused a high signal,
line 145 - is "as is shown in Equation (10).", should be as is shown in Equation (9),
line 374 - is "5. Conclusions", should be 6. Conclusions.
The article requires the above minor changes.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for your review.
I have responded to your comments one by one and the content of the response is in the attachment.
Best regards,
Suzhen Liu
The corresponding author
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
As I explained before, there is insufficient novelty in this paper for publication for all the reasons that I gave before. As the authors acknowledge and as was one of my main concerns, the paper does draw very heavily on the work of Reuter. The findings reported in this paper resubmitted to the journal are at best incremental, and therefore I recommend rejection.
I appreciate the difficulty in correcting English for a non-native speaker, and do have some sympathy in this regard. However, when the authors have been explicitly told about a mistake and how to correct it and then they do not correct the mistake, being a non-native speaker is irrelevant.
Reviewer 2 Report
Introduction
The added text including recent references looks good, however the grammatical English needs to be improved to be sophisticated enough for publication.
Finite element simulation:
Please superimpose the two graphs to show the conventional and high-energy pulsed EMAT in one figure. Use appropriate legends. Please do the same for Figure 6. Show the lift-off distance for conventional EMAT as well.
