Bond Behavior between High-Strength Rebar and Steel-Fiber-Reinforced Concrete under the Influence of the Fraction of Steel Fiber by Volume and High Temperature

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript investigated the bond performance between high-strength rebar and SFRC at high temperature. Overall, the manuscipt is well-written and the experimental scheme is good. However, the model in this manuscript is weak. I, therefore, recommend accept this manuscript after a major revision. The specific comments are given below.
1. The temperature near the rebar-SFRC interface was measured by the thermocouple. How did the thermocouple install in the interface? Moreover, did the presence of thermocouple affect the bond behavior between SFRC and rebar?
2. The layout of artworks in this manuscript is terrible. I noticed the authors tends to use 3D images. However, the 3D images actually reduce the readability. For example, in Fig. 7, it is hard to clearly identify the numerical relation of ultimate bond strength of specimens with 0.5-1.5 vol.% of fiber at 400 ℃. In Fig. 10, the important point indicating the internal cracking did not exhibit. The background color of Fig. 5 (b)-(d) seems meaningless.
3. In lines 455-458, the bond performance parameter B is proposed. However, the define of B is provided in line 478. Please reorganize this part to ensure all paramters described without misunderstanding.
4. It seems the authors referred the damage parameter of plastic damage model to established their model. Unfortunately, after a great length of introduction of bond damage variable D, the model was still an empirical model. The plastic damage model is made available for the damage with recoverable deformation, which is not suitable for the bond between concrete and rebar. Moreover, the model totally ignored temperature. As this paper aims to investigate the effect of temperature on rebar-SFRC bond, I believe temperature should be the main variable in Formula (14) and (15).

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thank you very much for your encouraging letter and kindly advise concerning our manuscript entitled “Evolution of bond performance between high-strength rebar and steel fiber reinforced concrete at high temperatures” (APPLSCI-2146729).

I am so sorry to bring you so much trouble because of our carelessness. We also thank the reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

The comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our research. Accordingly, we have studied the comments carefully and have revised the manuscript and responded, point to point, to the reviewer’s comments as listed below which we hope to meet with approval. We have highlighted all changes in red in the revised manuscript. The point-by-point responses to the reviewer’s comments are in the attachment.

I would like to re-submit this revised manuscript to “Applied Sciences”, and hope that it is acceptable for publication in the Special Issue entitled “Recent Advances in Cement and Concrete Composites Materials” of the journal.

At last, I want to thank you sincerely for your suggestions and I feel so sorry that so much of your precious time was wasted on our paper revision.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

 

With kindest regards,

Yours sincerely

Xiao-dong Li

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Evolution of bond performance between high-strength rebar and steel fiber reinforced concrete at high temperatures

It was a pleasure to review this article. This study is evolution of bond performance between high-strength rebar and steel fiber reinforced concrete at high temperatures. The result in this paper is good in an engineering point of view though the theme of this study is prevalent in research fields of cement composites. But this paper is need to correct some problems. For the reason, this paper is recommended to re-review in this journal after some major revisions are made. The following comments might help to improve the quality of the manuscript prior to re-review:

Major

1.Title: The title is similar to existing papers. Reviewers recommend adding royalty to the title.

2. Abstract: The abstract of this paper is relatively general. Revise the abstract of the paper and make the necessary contents.

3. Describe the specimen size in detail.

4. In addition, there are many expressions in English that are not academic in the paper. The present format is the research content of the report. More in-depth content for further research should be added.

5. In this paper, specimens were exposed for high temperature condition. Why did you expose to 800 degree?

6. The concentration of the MWCNT aqueous solution is low. At low concentrations, there is not much difference from normal OPC. What reactions occur at higher concentrations of MWCNT?

7. Overall, it is difficult to know what the royalties of the paper are. Please consider this section again and write Chapter 3 and 4.

8. Concluson: The conclusion should be rearranged in order of importance, and it is recommended to rewrite it.

 

Minor

1. There are too many typos throughout the paper. Please correct all typos.

 

2. This paper must be proofread in English. Reviewers are encouraged to request English proofreading by a professional proofreader.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thank you very much for your encouraging letter and kindly advise concerning our manuscript entitled “Evolution of bond performance between high-strength rebar and steel fiber reinforced concrete at high temperatures” (APPLSCI-2146729).

I am so sorry to bring you so much trouble because of our carelessness. We also thank the reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

The comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our research. Accordingly, we have studied the comments carefully and have revised the manuscript and responded, point to point, to the reviewer’s comments as listed below which we hope to meet with approval. We have highlighted all changes in red in the revised manuscript. The point-by-point responses to the reviewer’s comments are in the attachment.

I would like to re-submit this revised manuscript to “Applied Sciences”, and hope that it is acceptable for publication in the Special Issue entitled “Recent Advances in Cement and Concrete Composites Materials” of the journal.

At last, I want to thank you sincerely for your suggestions and I feel so sorry that so much of your precious time was wasted on our paper revision.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

 

With kindest regards,

Yours sincerely

Xiao-dong Li

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I believe the authors did great work and all the main concerns have been well revised. Therefore, I would like to recommend accept this manuscript.