Effect of Using Plastic Waste Bottles on Soil Response above Buried Pipes under Static Loads

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. What conclusions have been drawn from existing studies on plastic bottle reinforced soil?

2. What are the innovations of this research compared with the existing researches?

3. Why the study did not test the relevant mechanical properties of uPVC pipes under different conditions? If the mechanical properties of uPVC pipe can be combined, more reasonable indexes may be obtained.

4. According to the research in this paper, the smaller the u/B, the better, but the minimum value set in this paper is 0.5. If this value is less than 0.5, is it better? There is no relevant research in this paper. Is 0.5 the optimal value in this case?

Author Response

Reply to reviewers is listed in attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The structure of the article is clear and the analyses are described correctly. The conclusions of the article are clearly stated and are of a high level of merit. The authors' research has shown that the use of the described PET bottle mattresses improves the bearing capacity of the soil above the analyzed pipeline. This phenomenon is generally known, but mostly studies have been conducted using geotextiles rather than waste materials in the form of bottles. The authors estimated this effect at about 30%. The study also showed, which is valuable, that the width of the mattress has little effect on the subsequent increase in load-bearing capacity, which ultimately reduces the use of materials.

According to the reviewer, the references can be expanded, to include additional literature for example:

 1. Wysokowski, A. Influence of single-layer geotextile reinforcement on load capacity of buried steel box structure based on laboratory full-scale tests. Thin-Walled Structures, Volume 159, 2021, ISSN 0263-8231, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tws.2020.107312.

2. Bęben D. Soil-Steel Bridges. Design, Maintenance and Durability. 2020, ISBN: 978-3-030-34788-8. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34788-8.

Author Response

Reply to reviewers is listed in attached ile.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

none