A Study on the Depositional Law of Road Cutting in the Tengger Desert
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a straightforward, interesting study of a valuable aspect of an important topic. I have just a few small comments:
Title, abstract and elsewhere: ‘wind-sand’ is not recognised English. In most places it should be ‘wind-blown sand’.
L31 some relevant references would be good in support of this statement: ‘the safety of highway operation will be seriously threatened by the wind and sand flow.’ They include:
Bhattachan A, Okin GS, Zhang J, Vimal S, Lettenmaier DP (2019) Characterizing the role of wind and dust in traffic accidents in California. GeoHealth 3(10):328–336
Pan J, Zhao H, Wang Y, Liu G (2021) The influence of aeolian sand on the anti-skid characteristics of asphalt pavement. Materials 14:5523
Miri, A, Middleton, N (2022) Long-term impacts of dust storms on transport systems in south-eastern Iran. Natural Hazards 114(1): 291-312.
L45 It is best to say ‘Fluent software’ here.
L60-65 I think the authors should provide some background on WHY they chose to focus on road cuttings. Are they particularly associated with sand accumulation on highways? How do they compare, say, to dunes?
L68 A small locator map would be good because most readers do not know the location of Zhongwei, Ningxia Province in the Tengger Desert. Also, why establish the study here? Is there a new expressway?
L77 ‘When the wind speed is greater than the sand moving wind speed, the sand will jump with the air flow.’ Would read much better like this: ‘When the wind speed exceeds the threshold velocity for particle movement, the sand will be entrained into the air flow.’
For the most part, the English is good.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The aim of the manuscript is to investigate wind-blown sand transport and deposition within a road cutting section by combining field test and numerical simulation. According to the Reviewer, the addressed problem is current and worth to be investigated. However, the study requires significant improvements before being accepted for publication. The main issues lie in the fact that the adopted CFD modelling approach is very poorly described as well as ungraded cutting section geometry. Furthermore, some of the conclusions are trivial and already known in literature, i.e. the exponential decreasing profile of sand transport. Conversely, the main conclusion (i.e. the number 3), would require further evidences.
In the following, main concerns are pointed out.
1- Well established computational methods are used, but they are not clearly described in the manuscript. Moreover, the Reviewer has some doubt about the proper use of the computational model. In particular, the Authors should (i) clearly and consistently specify which kind of turbulence model is used among the huge amount of models proposed in literature; (ii) explicitly write the corresponding transport equations; (iii) clearly specify the turbulence modelling approach used close to the solid walls; (iv) if wall functions are adopted, please specify which kind of wall functions are used and the y^+ average values on each wall; (v) specify in detail the numerical approach (e.g, interpolation schemes for each term of the transport equations, time-advancing schemes, time step and overall extent of the simulation in time) adopted in both the space and time discretization. In the current version of the manuscript, such features of the model are completely missing.
2- The Authors should specify in detail the boundary conditions at inlet, outlet, top and solid walls for each field variable in transport equations.
3- The Authors should specify in detail how windblown sand transport is modeled in order to reproduce the typical exponential decreasing profile of sand concentration in air during saltation, and if any modelling approach is adopted for sand deposition and consequent accumulation. The latter issue is a potential fatal flaw of the study given the final aim of the study.
4- The computational model should be more extensively validated against wind tunnel or field tests on similar flow types (e.g. flows over hills or cuttings), by comparing e.g. measured and simulated wind speed profiles, friction velocity, pressure coefficient.
5- The geometry of ungraded road cutting section is missing in the present version of the manuscript.
No substantial editing of English language is required.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper presents simulation results and field test of the characteristics of wind-sand flow in hinterland of Tengger desert. The following comments are for the authors of the paper.
1. The title of the paper should be shortened and properly rephrased.
2. The paper should be arranged into different sections like a typical Journal paper; Introduction, literature review, methodology, results and discussions, then conclusion. This will help in properly structuring the paper. Results were discussed together with mathematical theory and formulations in Equations (2) and (3), along with models for experimental base.
3. The presented results are limited to mainly the fluctuating wind speed. Key variables of the system are expected.
Fair.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
No comments.
Editing is required.
