Simulation of the Hot Deformation and Fracture Behavior of Reduced Activation Ferritic/Martensitic 13CrMoNbV Steel
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript entitled: Simulation of the hot deformation and fracture behavior of reduced activation ferritic/martensitic 13CrMoNbV steel is suitable to be published in Applied Science after some minor changes.
General comments: Along the manuscript the authors use tension test. It will be more understandable if they use tensile tests.
The introduction is clear and easy to understand. The contextualization of the problem is clear.
Minor changes:
The scale bar in the SEM micrographs may be increased. The size is quite small and difficult to read. Figure 4, I suggest the authors to improve the contrast of the SEM images in order to be able to see the different phases present in the micrographs. The fracture mechanisms may be explained in more detail and a bit deeper. Currently, the description of the damage is not clear. Furthermore, the letters present in each SEM image may be changed (currently it is difficult to see properly).Author Response
Dear Reviewer!
Thank you for your thorough consideration of our paper “Simulation of the hot deformation and fracture behavior of reduced activation ferritic/martensitic 13CrMoNbV steel”. Please find below our replies on your comments.
COMMENTS FROM REVIEWER
Reviewer #1
The manuscript entitled: Simulation of the hot deformation and fracture behavior of reduced activation ferritic/martensitic 13CrMoNbV steel is suitable to be published in Applied Science after some minor changes.
General comments: Along the manuscript the authors use tension test. It will be more understandable if they use tensile tests.Reply: Authors have changed the term “tension” to “tensile” where it is appropriate.
The introduction is clear and easy to understand. The contextualization of the problem is clear.Reply: Thank you for your good opinion on the Introduction part of our paper.
Minor changes:
The scale bar in the SEM micrographs may be increased. The size is quite small and difficult to read.Reply: The scale bars in Figures 1, 4, and 8 were changed to be more readable.
Figure 4, I suggest the authors to improve the contrast of the SEM images in order to be able to see the different phases present in the micrographs.
Reply: The contrast of Figures 1 and 4 was improved to make ferrite, martensite phases, and carboborides particles more visible.
The fracture mechanisms may be explained in more detail and a bit deeper. Currently, the description of the damage is not clear.Reply: The high strain in the localized strain discontinuity cannot be compensated by recovery processes, which lead to the appearance of the microvoids. The micropores nucleate basically at the second phase particles, interphase and grain boundaries. As the strain in the material increases, the microvoids grow, coalesce, and lead to the separation of two samples’ parts when the size of the micropores achieves the critical value, which forms a continuous fracture surface.
Furthermore, the letters present in each SEM image may be changed (currently it is difficult to see properly).Reply: The letters’ font in Figures 1 and 8 were increased and were changed in color to be more visible.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The novelty of the paper is not sufficient highlighted.
The description of the FE model and simulation assumptions are missing
Discrepancy, e.g. in Fig.10, is not commented.
Do you have also to indicate how many sample have been tested.
minor typo, e.g. in table 4, have to be revised
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer!
Thank you for your thorough consideration of our paper “Simulation of the hot deformation and fracture behavior of reduced activation ferritic/martensitic 13CrMoNbV steel”. Please find below our replies on your comments.
COMMENTS FROM REVIEWER
Reviewer #2
The novelty of the paper is not sufficient highlighted.Reply: The dual-phase ferritic/martensitic steels are lack of a high ductility during the hot deformation such as one-phase austenitic steels due to present in its structure of the interphase boundaries. However, this type of steels has an attractive prospect for application in the nuclear industry due to a higher resistant to void swelling under irradiation conditions in comparison with austenitic steels. The industrial technology of the nuclear fuel shell’s production needs the hard schemes of the deformation to create the required shape of the tubes. To prevent the fracture under hard hot deformation conditions, it is needed to develop the deformation and fracture models, which can be realized by the FEM for the simulation of the industrial processes.
The text of the Introduction part was corrected accordingly Reviewer’s comment.
The description of the FE model and simulation assumptions are missing
Reply: The finite element modeling software Deform 3D was used to simulate the plastic deformation behavior and the failure of the steel. The specimens for the simulation of compression and tensile tests were divided into 50 000 tetrahedral elements. The compression was proceeded between two rigid dies with the friction coefficient between the sample and the dies equal 0.3. The movement boundary conditions were applied to one of the tensile sample’s edges while another edge was fixed.
The part “Materials and Methods” was corrected accordingly Reviewer’s comment.
Discrepancy, e.g. in Fig.10, is not commented.
Reply: The minor discrepancy between the predicted and experimental tensile curves may be seen in Figure 10 even for the optimized values of the coefficients. It may be described by obtaining strain values up to 4.0 (Figure 9) during tensile tests due to deformation localization. While the constitutive model for the description of the steel deformation behavior was constructed for the strain values up to 0.8 (Figure 5). The slight difference between experimental and calculated using Eqs. (1), (4), (6-9) stress values may be present despite steady-state deformation mode (the stress value is independent on the strain) after the strain of 0.6.
The text of the manuscript was modified accordingly Reviewer’s comment.
Do you have also to indicate how many samples have been tested.
Reply: Three samples for each temperature and strain rate were used during compression and tensile tests. The part “Materials and Methods” was corrected accordingly Reviewer’s comment.
Minor typo, e.g. in table 4, have to be revised
Reply:
The manuscript was carefully reread and typos such as bold letter in the Table 2 were corrected; sign “ºÐ¡” was changed to the correct degree Centigrade sign throughout the text.“The excellent agreement of the constructed deformation and fracture models with experimental data makes it to be very perspective for the simulation and optimization of the industrial deformation processes for the 13CrMoNbV steel.” It is better quite good agreement.
Reply: word “excellent” was changed to “good” accordingly Reviewer’s comment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
