Lightweight Solid Wood Panels Made of Paulownia Plantation Wood

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

please see the attached file.

Best regards,

Reviewer

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

English should be checked carefully one more time.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for the time invested for checking this manuscript. We have improved the paper according to your suggestions.

Dear Authors,

The paper is worth publishing in Applied Sciences, however, in my opinion, is not well prepared and requires many major corrections. I have provided my remarks as follows:

 

1. Citation style should be corrected, especially when citing several papers in a row (lines 57, 60, 139) we have added at least one keyword to differentiate the specific of each source and avoided in this way the bulk citation (Page 2, lines 88-89, 92-95 and Page 6, lines 184-185).

 

2. Line 64 – studied by “whom”? Either the author's name or "studied in" should be used. It was added the information that honeycomb, Dendrolight®, Bionic Delta are industrial established products (Page 3, lines 104, 105).
3. The clamping pressure value should be provided (line 92), because for the glue types mentioned in the paper, this pressure significantly affects layer’s thickness and strength. The clamping pressure of 0.68 MPa was added (Page 3, line 132).
4. Betted quality Figures should be provided. Poor quality makes it difficult to see anything. The quality of the figures was improved.
5. It is not clear what 1-layer, 3-layer and so on mean. The Figure should be provided where these expressions are described with drawing.
6. Does the expression “single-layered” mean that lamellas were glued longitudinally? I propose to draw pressure direction with the arrows in the Figure. The arrows were added to Figure 1 (Page 3), to indicate the pressure direction.
7. Line 104 – very small pressure was provided. 11.7 N/m2 = 0.0000117 MPa. Requirement for most thin layer glues according to technical card is 0.6 MPa. Please check Kleiberit PUR 501.0 technical card, for example. This leads to some doubts whether the gluing procedure was done properly. Many thank for signalizing us this error, the pressure was corrected to 0.6 MPa.
8. Table 2, Table 3 and Table 4 – Description in brackets should be placed under the last line of the Table. Updated for Table 2, Table 3 and Table 4
9. Figure with testing scheme should be provided, especially span between supports should be given. At Page 7 Figure 7 was improved.
10. Figure 4 – the entire testing setup should be shown, not only a part of it. Figure is not visible when printed. It was improved.
11. General remark to the 3.2 section – force-deflection relation from tests for each sample should be presented in graphs, not only in tables. We have added Figure 6, Figure 8 and Figure 10.
12. Section 3.3 – Figure with samples description should be provided – dimensions, the manner of cutting and so on. Now it is not clear how they were prepared. Figure 4 was added
13. Figures’ numbers – the numbers of the Figures should be carefully checked. Figure 5 is duplicated. Dear reviewer, we suppose that you received an old version of the manuscript compared to the present version. In the updated document the picture´s numbers were not duplicated.
14. The second Figure 5 (before conclusions) is also not visible when printed. All the figures were improved.

Dear reviewer, thank you again for your efforts and for bringing added value to this manuscript.

The authors.

Best regards,

Reviewer

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

The manuscript provides potentially interesting experimental results of investigation of lightweight solid wood panels made of Paulownia plantation wood. Single-layered and three-layered solid wood panels (SWP) were bonded with melamine-urea formaldehyde, polyurethane and polyvinyl acetate resins and tested for their physical and mechanical properties. It was shown that single-layered SWP have similar properties for all applied adhesives, the use of PUR adhesive influences positively the mechanical properties of the three-layered SWP. It was recommended to use Paulownia in sandwich structures as lightweight core material for three-layered laminates with thin faces.  

Minor points:

1. Lines 19-21. It would be better to add the word «properties» to this sentence: «The panels were tested for their physical (density) and mechanical (modulus of rupture, modulus of elasticity, compressive shear strength and wood breakage rate) properties»             

2.    It would be better to add correct binomial name for all wood species (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco,

 Larix sibirica Ledeb., Abies alba Mill., etc), as it was made for Schizolobium parahyba (Vell.) Blake.

 

Author Response

Dear authors,

The manuscript provides potentially interesting experimental results of investigation of lightweight solid wood panels made of Paulownia plantation wood. Single-layered and three-layered solid wood panels (SWP) were bonded with melamine-urea formaldehyde, polyurethane and polyvinyl acetate resins and tested for their physical and mechanical properties. It was shown that single-layered SWP have similar properties for all applied adhesives, the use of PUR adhesive influences positively the mechanical properties of the three-layered SWP. It was recommended to use Paulownia in sandwich structures as lightweight core material for three-layered laminates with thin faces.  

Minor points:

1. Lines 19-21. It would be better to add the word «properties» to this sentence: «The panels were tested for their physical (density) and mechanical (modulus of rupture, modulus of elasticity, compressive shear strength and wood breakage rate) properties»              Thank you for this observation, your improvement suggestion was applied (Page 1, line 21 in Abstract).
2. It would be better to add correct binomial name for all wood species (Pseudotsuga menziesii(Mirb.) Franco,

 Larix sibirica Ledeb., Abies alba Mill., etc), as it was made for Schizolobium parahyba (Vell.) Blake. Dear reviewer, the required information about all presented wood species are now available in the manuscript.

Dear reviewer, thank you again for your efforts and for bringing added value to this manuscript.

The authors. 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

please see the attached file.

Reviewer

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you again for your improvement suggestions. 
As you reccomended, we have removed the doubled description in Table 2 and indicated the length between supports and cross-section in Figure 7.

Best regards,

The authors.