The Dual-Parameter Control of Synchronization in Steel Box Girder Incremental Launching Construction
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe overall quality of this manuscript is relatively plain. The novelty and significance of this manuscript is insufficient to be published. The following comments are for reference.
1. First of all, the abstract of this manuscript is verbose. The authors spend a lot of space to review the common knowledge about the incremental launching construction. For readers interested in this field, they would prefer to learn the novelty and significant findings of this research.
2. Page 1, line 35 to 37: " thanks to the application and development of computer technology in the field of bridge construction, incremental launching construction emerged as the times require". This sentence seems illogical and unreasonable.
3. Page 1, line 37 to 40: " compared with construction methods such as the rotation method and the lifting method, the incremental launching construction has many advantages such as high control accuracy, no impact on traffic under the bridge, large span, and high efficiency." This statement is inappropriate. Each construction method has its own advantages, and the determination of construction methods should take into account many factors, such as the actual construction environment and structural configuration. In addition, the efficiency of incremental launching construction seems to be lower than that of rotation construction.
4. Page 4, there are Chinese notes in Figure 2.
5. Page 5, line 172 to 177: why does the FE model apply a concentrated force after accounting for overall gravity?
6. Page 7, line 226, what is the basis for the five height differences of 5mm to 25mm considered in FE analyses.
7. Page 7, line 243, the corner mark [30] was repeated twice.
8. Page 7 to 11, there is a crucial question: whether the proposed thresholds and formulas have value for generalization? In other words, can the aforementioned thresholds and formulas be directly applied to other engineering cases?
9. Page 11, line 338 to 343, the first conclusion has no value.
10. The authors are advised to check the grammar and typos. The format of the references should be uniform. In addition, and almost all of reference cited in this manuscript is Chinese article.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
The authors are advised to double-check the grammar and typos.
Author Response
Dear Professor, thank you for your valuable suggestions in your busy schedule. In response to your suggestions, I have made the following modifications.Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors3d.p. for stresses is crazy.
Presentation of FEA without assessment of model can be erroneous.
Nephogram is not appropriate term.
Longitudinal temporal variations of the contact region are not discussed
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Generally the English is OK. Para headings could be improved e.g Conclude
Author Response
Dear Professor, thank you for your valuable suggestions in your busy schedule. In response to your suggestions, I have made the following modifications.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments on the paper submitted to Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417):
Title: Dual-parameter Control of Synchronization in Steel Box Girder Incremental Launching Construction
Manuscript ID: applsci-2660461
General Comments
This paper investigates the effect unsynchronized jacking in Steel Box Girder Incremental Launching Construction. The authors used a real bridge project in the case study, and provided detailed information about the numerical analyses performed. In general, this kind of study is very important to bridge engineers and the outcomes are supported by the presented data.
Nevertheless, I identified some places on which some Figures are missing and more details should be provided by the authors to a clear understanding of the results.
Based on that, my recommendation is to accept with minor revisions required. Below, I provide more suggestions that I hope be useful to the authors improve the current manuscript.
Title: The Title summarizes well the content of the paper.
Abstract: In general, the Abstract is well structured since it provides the motivation of the proposed study, purpose, methods, main results, and conclusions of the paper. Nevertheless, I identified many places in which the sentences showed some grammatical errors such as Upper case letter after comma, etc. In general, the paper could be enhanced by a professional proofreading service.
Technical / Editorial comments / Suggestions/Questions to the authors
Line 6: "Concrete composite beams. But they have rel-". It seems to me that this sentence was inappropriately broken. "But" should come after a comma.
Line 7: Please, fix such kind of mistakes: " [] , During incremental launching, " and “launching, The contact area between the jack”. Sentence with upper case letter at inappropriate positions.
Section 1: Introduction
General: The authors present the main ideas required in the Introduction adequately: (i) context, (ii) motivation of the proposed research, (iv) purpose of the paper, and (v) methods applied. I suggest mainly undergoing a careful English review on this Topic and improving the following aspects below.
Technical / Editorial comments / Suggestions/Questions to the authors
Line 31: Please, correct the order of the Sections to Start with “1 Introduction”.
Line 37-39: Please, consider adding some Figures to illustrate the differences between these three systems “Compared with construction methods such as the rotation method and the lifting method, the Incremental Launching construction has many advantages…”
Line 68: Please, clarify the meaning of the notatio SVR in "SVR algorithm".
Line 71-77: Please, avoid too long long sentences. This sentence, for instance, should be broken to improve the flow of ideas. Sometimes, its difficult to understand the connections of ideas in too long sentences.
Line 89: I missed some Figure to clarify this sentence “All of the above studies are based on the condition that the right and left jacks are in the same working condition.”. In practice, the authors should add some Figure related to the method to clarify this aspect.
General: Sometimes, the reference number is too far from the author's names. For instance, in this sentence, “Li Chuanxi established a finite element model to analyze the changes in local stress when lateral offset or unsynchronized vertical jacking occurred during incremental launching construction.” Please, add the reference number just after the author names.
Section 2: Engineering Overview
General: Please, consider changing the name of this section to something more clear. Maybe "Overview of the bridge..."
Figure 2: there are some information in Chinese in this Figure. Please, consider translating this information.
General: the quality of the Figures 1 and 2 is too small. Consider remaking these Figures.
Section 3 - Finite Element Modeling
Line 154-157: I missed some Figure related to the full numerical model. Please, consider adding the figure related to this text. “The remaining main girders, guide girders and hollow web truss-type diaphragm are selected to be modeled with beam units, and rigid connections are established in the part where the beam unit meets the shell unit to make their nodes coupled.
General: how the concrete of the bridge was modelled? This information was not clear in Figure 3 or in the text.
Line 165-167: “The contact between the steel channel beam base plate and the mat is of the highly accurate face-face discrete cell type, with the steel channel beam base plate as the master face and the top face of the mat as the slave face.” This information is not clear as the parts of the beam are not depicted in the Figures and the figure related to the numerical model does not show this parts. Please, consider adding more figures related to the numerical models with the description of these parts.
Section 4: Local Stress Analysis
Line 181: “the allowable stress of Q345qD steel is 233MPa.”. This is the yielding stress of the steel? Or a information from design.
Line 182: the parts “pads“ and the “steel channel beam” should be depicted in some Figure for clarity.
Line 193: the authors should consider using less decimal places. Two places are sufficient.
Section 5: Study on Single-parameter Control of Synchronization in Incremental Launching Construction
Line 203 to 205: the authors should include a Figure highliting the information about the jacks positions.
Lie 213-2018: Please, the authors should consider revising the whole manuscript to avoid the use of too long sentences.
Line 225: “The proposed vertical jacking height difference”. The authors should include a Figure depicting this aspect of the problem. In general, the description is not sufficient to a clear understanding of the problem. (for less familiar readers).
Figure 7: It is essential that the authors include the name of these parts in some Figure to clarify the position of such parts: "base plate", “ventral plate”, "horizontal partition, "longitudinal stiffening rib", etc.
Section 6: Study on Two-parameter Control of Synchronization in Incremental Launching Construction
General: Figure 10 and Figure 11 should be cited and better discussed in the text.
Line 289-291: this information should be better described with a Figure.
Section 7: Conclusions
The conclusions are supported by the presented methods and results. Besides, the conclusions are valuable for future investigations in this field.
English writing:
In general, the manuscript is written in average English. A moderate English review is required to avoid minor grammatical errors.
Figures and tables.
In general, I missed more details in some Figures, and I also missed some Figures to a clear understanding of some ideas.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageIn general, the manuscript is written in average English. A moderate English review is required to avoid minor grammatical errors.
Author Response
Dear Professor, thank you for your valuable suggestions in your busy schedule. In response to your suggestions, I have made the following modifications.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis research describes incremental launching method in bridge engineering, and investigates stability of steel box girders in bridge construction. Finite element analysis were conducted on steel box girders and stress analysis results have been presented. The research provides interesting finite element technique and could be accepted after addressing the following comments:
Page one line 34-36: the sentences are not clear and they are vague. The authors are recommended to rewrite the first paragraph of the introduction section for more clarity.
Page two: the referencing in bracket does not match with the order given in the reference list. The authors are suggested to review the referencing order and the format.
Page three: Provide a brief technical background of the type of the bridge studied in this research before getting into the details.
Page 4: the resolution of Figure 1 and Figure 2 is very low and the number are not readable. Please provide clear figures.
Page 5: Add boundary condition to the Figure 3 for the reader to be able to produce the model.
Page 5: Scale up the Figure 4 as the current Figure is not clear.
Page 6: Stress analysis figure numbers are not readable and need modification.
Page 6: What was the mesh size in the finite element models? Was there any sensitivity analysis conducted for optimum mesh size?
Page 8: Please provide detailed description of the model validation.
Page 12: the last paragraph of the conclusion section is not clear. The authors are recommended to rewrite this section.
The authors are suggested to go through the manuscript and check for spelling and grammar.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
The authors are suggested to go through the manuscript and check for spelling and grammar.
Author Response
Dear Professor, thank you for your valuable suggestions in your busy schedule. In response to your suggestions, I have made the following modifications.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis manuscript investigates the effect of deviations on the incremental launching construction. A control equation based on multiple parameters is proposed. The authors have diligently revised the manuscript, and the revised version has addressed the problems proposed previously. This manuscript is recommended for publication.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThere are many language problems in this manuscript. The authors are advised to further improve the English quality of this manuscript.
