Fatigue Life Assessment of Key Fatigue Details of the Corroded Weathering-Steel Anchor Boxes of a Cable-Stayed Bridge

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The title of the article is very interesting and it seems that the work has been done very well, but unfortunately, when I read the work, I believe that the present research has no novelty. Moreover, the work done does not fit well with the title of the article. In other words, it is better to state that the effect of the initial crack size on the remaining life of the part has been investigated. Because, a defect with very simple assumptions may be considered equivalent to a crack. It should be noted that the pitting corrosion defects have different shapes and it is better for it to be considered as a circular hole, or an oval that has length, width and depth, or a crack which depth is also considered. So, it is not interesting to just consider cracks with an initial length.
In addition, the following points should be considered:

1- The most achievement of the present research should describe in the end of abstract. 

2- Introduction and literature review should improve in the field of effects of corrosion defects and their sizes on the fatigue life. 

3- The innovation of the present work compared to other publications should bold in the end of introduction. 

4- In the figures, the unit should be written between two brackets. 

5- it is necessary to address an appropriate reference for each equation. 

6- It is strongly suggested to use update references (published after 2018). 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The study was performed at a good level. The presented experimental results are of scientific and practical interest. In general, the research topic is relevant.
The literary review is quite well done. However, in the review you rarely write about the grades of steels used in the sources. It would be good to mention the weather-resistant steels or the ship steels studied by the authors and the brand of these steels.
Also in your review, almost all sources are devoted to the study of fatigue failure of steels. But there is very little on modeling this process. It would be good to add a couple of research links in the field of modeling the fatigue failure process.
Also, to improve the perception of the article, we advise you to add a plan for further work in the article at the end of the first review part.
Almost the entire article is devoted to modeling and, accordingly, the overview part should also be devoted to modeling. Now you have a lot of data about real tests and almost nothing about modeling and calculation.  It would be better to do it the opposite way.
You give the results of calculations, but how do they agree with the practical results obtained by researchers in the same articles from your own review? How reliable are the results obtained and how do they agree with real tests? It would be good to add these comparative data and reflect the results of these comparisons in the conclusions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,
thank you for your article.
On first reading, it is clear that the article is well prepared and covers a highly relevant area of the construction industry. 
The introduction is well written,
I recommend expanding on recent studies evaluating the effect of repeated loading on the fatigue behaviour of steels:
10.1007/s13369-021-06318-8
10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2019.105190

The description of the methods and their application is adequate.
I am not sure if the abstract is consistent with the results, as the model focuses on a specific structure and case, but the abstract emphasizes the general approach.

The conclusions are consistent with the findings. Multiple studies have evaluated this type of steel, so the results are not surprising.  

What you need to fix:
- Wrong chapter numbering,
- small figures
- format (placement) of equations,
- format of some tables

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have done their best to respond to the reviewer's comments and edit the manuscript. I believe that the revised manuscript is of acceptable quality compared to the original version of the article. However, there are still doubts about the innovation of the present research compared to other works,  and by closing my eyes to this issue, the article is acceptable for publication.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In general, my comments were partially taken into account. But all corrections were made only by adding 2 paragraphs in the introduction. It would be necessary to add at least 2-3 more sources to the introduction devoted to modeling (add 2-3 paragraphs to text).  Also, it would be good to add a work plan to the end of the overview section. Add the data that was written to me in response to a remark about practical data to the article in the introduction and conclusions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx