Pavement Performance Investigation of Nano-TiO2/CaCO3 and Basalt Fiber Composite Modified Asphalt Mixture under Freeze‒Thaw Cycles
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is interesting.
However, the authors should devote more effort in describing experimental methods and results.
English requires revision.
Author Response
Dear Editor and Reviewer,
We thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript entitled “Pavement Performance Investigation of Nano-TiO2/CaCO3 and Basalt Fiber Composite Modified Asphalt Mixture under Freeze-Thaw Cycles” (Applied Sciences-396791) by YaFeng Gong, HaiPeng Bi, ZhenHong Tian and GuoJin Tan for publication in Applied Sciences.
We are thankful to the Reviewer and Editor for pointing out some important modifications needed in the paper. We have seriously taken into account of these comments. The explanations of what we have changed in response to the reviewer’s comments are given point by point in the following pages attached in this letter.
We hope that all these changes fulfill the requirements to make the manuscript acceptable for publication in Applied Sciences.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely yours,
YaFeng Gong, HaiPeng Bi, ZhenHong Tian and GuoJin Tan
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for your interesting study. I have several remarks, please see attached file. I would suggest that you varie your manuscript by citing some researchers from other countries like Canada, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and USA, not only China. Add reference in lines 79-85. Please consider to improve quality of your photos and images (comments about it are in the attached file). Pay attention to the abbreviations in order Reader could understand at once what it is about it. You have quite general conclusions, please add some more details into them. And give insight about the cost of asphalt production with nano TiO2/CaCO3 and basalt fibers in comparison to reference one? Why actually there is no comparison in results to a reference mix without any modifiers? You have to add those results.
Regards,
Reviewer
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Editor and Reviewer,
We thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript entitled “Pavement Performance Investigation of Nano-TiO2/CaCO3 and Basalt Fiber Composite Modified Asphalt Mixture under Freeze-Thaw Cycles” (Applied Sciences-396791) by YaFeng Gong, HaiPeng Bi, ZhenHong Tian and GuoJin Tan for publication in Applied Sciences.
We are thankful to the Reviewer and Editor for pointing out some important modifications needed in the paper. We have seriously taken into account of these comments. The explanations of what we have changed in response to the reviewer’s comments are given point by point in the following pages attached in this letter.
We hope that all these changes fulfill the requirements to make the manuscript acceptable for publication in Applied Sciences.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely yours,
YaFeng Gong, HaiPeng Bi, ZhenHong Tian and GuoJin Tan
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper "Pavement Performance Investigation of Nano-TiO2/CaCO3 and Basalt Fiber Composite Modified Asphalt Mixture under Freeze-Thaw Cycle" presents the experimental tests on asphalt mixes with anno TiO2 and Basalt fibers to improve its resistance under freeze-thaw cycles. The work is interesting and strictly actual, the literature review is correct and detailed, and the paper is well organized.
However, I have some questions for the authors:
all acronyms shopuld be defined before they appear (eg. GM at line 13, SMA at line 36);
line 29: "can reach to" is not correct;
line 56: why is "obvious" the improvement?
Line 58-59 snf 77-78: the concept is repeated;
"research" instead of "researches" at line 85;
Information about asphalt, basalt fibers, aggregates and mineral powder source is not necessary;
please add references about all cited standards (e.g. line 127,144, 155, 163, 186, 192, 193, 200,
line 128: "3" of g/cm3 is a superscript character;
what is the "reference standard" of table 2?
how long is the diameter of money in figure 2?
Table 3 lacks units of measure;
What curve refers to AC-13 in figure 3?
Why is yellow the text at lines 159-162?
line 171: what are the thermo-hygrometric conditions?
line 196: according to Eq. (1);
line 220: according to Eq. (2). Moreover, eq 2 seems to be not correct: the creep rate has unit equal to MPa/s. I think it would be 1/s;
line 246: there are two "a" and "d" lacks;
Figures 8, 9, 10, 13: it is not correct to use the same variable "damage degree" to describe evoultuion of stability, indirect tensile stiffness modulus, and splitting tensile strength performances.
Author Response
Dear Editor and Reviewer,
We thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript entitled “Pavement Performance Investigation of Nano-TiO2/CaCO3 and Basalt Fiber Composite Modified Asphalt Mixture under Freeze-Thaw Cycles” (Applied Sciences-396791) by YaFeng Gong, HaiPeng Bi, ZhenHong Tian and GuoJin Tan for publication in Applied Sciences.
We are thankful to the Reviewer and Editor for pointing out some important modifications needed in the paper. We have seriously taken into account of these comments. The explanations of what we have changed in response to the reviewer’s comments are given point by point in the following pages attached in this letter.
We hope that all these changes fulfill the requirements to make the manuscript acceptable for publication in Applied Sciences.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely yours,
YaFeng Gong, HaiPeng Bi, ZhenHong Tian and GuoJin Tan
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors revised the paper
Author Response
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and we appreciate for editor and reviewer’s warm work earnestly.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors, thank you for your updates, the manuscript looks much better now. For the future, it would be always useful to have a comparison with reference mix in your studies. So far, I dont have many comments to your updated manuscript. I would suggest to improve quality of your figures though (see my comments). Regards, Reviewer
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Editor and Reviewer,
We thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript entitled “Pavement Performance Investigation of Nano-TiO2/CaCO3 and Basalt Fiber Composite Modified Asphalt Mixture under Freeze-Thaw Cycles” (Applied Sciences -396791) by YaFeng Gong, HaiPeng Bi, ZhenHong Tian and GuoJin Tan for publication in Applied Sciences.
We are thankful to the Reviewer and Editor for pointing out some important modifications needed in the paper. We have seriously taken into account of these comments. The explanations of what we have changed in response to the reviewer’s comments are given point by point in the following pages attached in this letter.
We hope that all these changes fulfill the requirements to make the manuscript acceptable for publication in Applied Sciences.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely yours,
YaFeng Gong, HaiPeng Bi, ZhenHong Tian and GuoJin Tan
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
