The Potential of Focusing Acoustic Retroreflectors for Architectural Surface Treatment
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Quite an extensive paper proposing a new concept of focusing retroreflector which can be a good reference for readers. I have no main criticism for the paper and I think the paper can be accepted as it is.
Author Response
Thank you for spending time with this manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
In conclusion, I can state that this is a successful article dedicated to an interesting and important area of acoustics. The obtained results are very interesting for the theoretical development of spatial and building acoustics with interesting outputs for practice.
I recommend the authors of the article to think about adding some additional data and facts, for example:
● In the conclusion, I recommend describing in more detail how the authors will proceed in the presented area
● Similarly, I recommend adding what experimental methods the authors will use to confirm the results obtained by the simulations
● It will certainly be beneficial to supplement the conclusion of the contribution with information on which areas of use the presented topics and the conclusions of the contribution are aimed at. Where the authors see the practical use of their research.
● Furthermore, I recommend the authors to think about dividing the paper into two parts.
Author Response
The reviewer makes the following suggestions:
Reviewer: In the conclusion, I recommend describing in more detail how the authors will proceed in the presented area
Response: We have added text at the end of the Conclusions that, in broad terms, describes our future research plans.
Reviewer: Similarly, I recommend adding what experimental methods the authors will use to confirm the results obtained by the simulations
Response: We have added four sentences in the fourth paragraph of Section 4.1 which describe experimental methods that can be used to confirm simulation results. We are currently conducting research using one of those methods (but don't have mature results yet).
Reviewer: It will certainly be beneficial to supplement the conclusion of the contribution with information on which areas of use the presented topics and the conclusions of the contribution are aimed at. Where the authors see the practical use of their research.
Response: The manuscript includes Section 4.3 (Applications) which is just before the Conclusions. The manuscript also includes 'Featured Application' before the abstract, which we have revised and extended to help address the reviewer's suggestion.
Reviewer: Furthermore, I recommend the authors to think about dividing the paper into two parts.
Response: Although the paper is long and conceptually complex, we decided to keep the paper in its current format.
We thank the reviewer for spending time with this manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
Acoustic reflectors for architectural surface treatment are discussed in detail in the paper. There is a clear, well-structured flow of ideas throughout the paper, from the abstract to the concluding statements. The following minor suggestions/observations are offered for the authors to address before their work is accepted for publication in Applied Sciences:
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Explain the choice of 2.4 x 2.4 m square and 7.2 x 7.2 m square reflectors? In the case of intermediate reflectors or reflectors outside of this range, what happens to them?
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This is useful for estimating the amount of sound that will be reflected from those types of reflector surfaces in (1) over the frequency band (125Hz to 4kHz), patch sizes (0.6 and 1.2m), and source distances (1.5 and 4m).
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What effect does surface roughness have on the quality of reflected/returned sound?
Author Response
The reviewer makes the following suggestions/observations:
Reviewer: Explain the choice of 2.4 x 2.4 m square and 7.2 x 7.2 m square reflectors? In the case of intermediate reflectors or reflectors outside of this range, what happens to them?
Response: We realised that the reviewer probably missed the key distinction between the small and large ideal reflectors: the small one has source-receivers covering its whole footprint, whereas the large one extends well beyond the source-receiver area. Hence the important distinction is that the large one is extensive (relative to the source-receiver area) whereas the small one is not. The large one is the largest viable size (for 4 m distance etc) for the particular computer hardware used, and it is a 2.4 m square extended by a 2.4 m margin. Therefore we have made changes in various parts of the manuscript, including the Abstract, the last paragraph of 2.1.1 and the Conclusions to state and restate the important distinction.
Reviewer: This is useful for estimating the amount of sound that will be reflected from those types of reflector surfaces in (1) over the frequency band (125Hz to 4kHz), patch sizes (0.6 and 1.2m), and source distances (1.5 and 4m).
Response: the reviewer is suggesting that the parameters that we investigated be more obvious to the reader. We have revised the Abstract to include specific information about this, and made some minor edits to the Conclusions.
Reviewer: What effect does surface roughness have on the quality of reflected/returned sound?
We have added Appendix B to answer this question.
We thank the reviewer for spending time with this manuscript.
