Effect of Disintegration Times of the Homogeneity of Soil prior to Treatment
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In the present manuscript an investigation about the optimal soildisaggregation time is carried out. Experiments have been focusing on different operating conditions and soil samples with different characteristics. In general, the work is well organized and display interesting results. However, further improvements are strongly required in order to achieve a manuscript quality for potential publication. As follows, comments and suggestions to be addressed:
Comment#1 (Abstract): Authors firs indicate as "disaggregation time" the main investigated parameter of the present work. However, they then report the term "disintegration time" (line 13). It should be chosen only one term and consistently used throughout the manuscript.
Comment#2: The introduction is too general and does not provide sufficient background about the soil stabilization practice and main reasons leading to the soil stabilization requirement. Authors should definitely improve and deepen this section.
Comment#3: All the data reported in Fig. 1 and Tables 2 and 3 should be reported in the Results section providing a new sub-section on the soil samples characteristics. Moreover, both sections 2 and 3 could be merged showing the information in two sub-sections related to the involved materials and the methodologies.
Comment#4: Why Authors selected so many different disintegration times for the various soil samples and wet or dry conditions? How can they compare the obtained results among the different investigated cases? This should be better explained.
Comment#5: Figures from 3 to 6 display the visual evaluation of very few investigated disintegration times and dry or wet condition compared to the ones reported in Table 4. What are the reasons?
Comment#6: In Fig. 5 the letters b and d refer to the same test. Moreover, it is reported a disintegration time of 13 and 25 s for the wet condition which is not indicated in the Table 4. Similarly, Fig. 6b reports a disintegration time of 15 s for the wet condition while in Table 4 is indicated as 17 s. Why this discordance? This is very confusing for a reader.
Comment#7 (Lines 169-170): "After homogenizing the soil is at 10 seconds disintegration time...", this sentence should be better rewritten.
Comment#8 (Line 198): "...increasing...", it should be "increases" here.
Comment#9 (Line 211): "...and the passing through percentage is 57 % 16 mm sieve.", this should be better rewritten.
Comment#10: Authors should improve the legend graphics on Figures from 7 to 13.
Comment#11: Authors consider the disaggregation time as one of the main parameter affecting the efficacy of further mixing procedure with binder materials. However, it also generally reported that solid material-binder mixtures can be significantly affected by the chemical properties of the investigated solid material. For instance, the soluble salts and sulphate content can be a concerning issue as reported by some recent work such as: "Ferraro A., Farina I., Race M., Colangelo F., Cioffi R., Fabbricino M. (2019) Pre-treatments of MSWI fly-ashes: a comprehensive review to determine optimal conditions for their reuse and/or environmentally sustainable disposal. Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology, 18(3), 453–471. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11157-019-09504-1"
Authors could report some discussion about this perspective in order to provide a more complete overview of the topic.
Author Response
Author’s Responses to Comments of the Reviewer 1
We have revised our manuscript in accordance with the reviewers’ comments to improve the manuscript. We are sincerely grateful to the reviewers for their elaborated comments. We respond to each review comment or suggestion made by the reviewers in detail below.
Reviewer #1: Comments and author’s response.
I have carefully read the manuscript and completed my review.
Comments
Comment #1 (Abstract): Authors firs indicate as "disaggregation time" the main investigated report the term "disintegration time" (line 13). It should be chosen only one term and consistently used throughout the manuscript.
Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see lines 1, 10 and 11.
Comment#2: The introduction is too general and does not provide sufficient background about the soil stabilization practice and main reasons leading to the soil stabilization requirement. Authors should definitely improve and deepen this section.
Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see lines 27-34.
Comment#3: All the data reported in Fig. 1 and Tables 2 and 3 should be reported in the Results section providing a new sub-section on the soil samples characteristics. Moreover, both sections 2 and 3 could be merged showing the information in two sub-sections related to the involved materials and the methodologies.
Author’s Responses: Thank you for your comments, sections 2 and 3 is merged with the title Materials and Methodology (Please see line 58), but I prefer to leave these results of the materials used as it is because I don’t want the reader to be confuse with the main results of the research.
Comment#4: Why Authors selected so many different disintegration times for the various soil samples and wet or dry conditions? How can they compare the obtained results among the different investigated cases? This should be better explained.
Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see lines 81-86.
Comment#5: Figures from 3 to 6 display the visual evaluation of very few investigated disintegration times and dry or wet condition compared to the ones reported in Table 4. What are the reasons?
Author’s Responses: Thank you for your comment, the manuscript have been revised and updated, please see lines 103-104.
Comment#6: In Fig. 5 the letters b and d refer to the same test. Moreover, it is reported a disintegration time of 13 and 25 s for the wet condition which is not indicated in the Table 4. Similarly, Fig. 6b reports a disintegration time of 15 s for the wet condition while in Table 4 is indicated as 17 s. Why this discordance? This is very confusing for a reader.
Author’s Responses: Thank you for your comment, the Fig. 5 have been revised and updated to be (d) air–dried soil specimen instead of wet soil specimen. As well as table 4 has been updated to 15 s.
Comment#7 (Lines 169-170): "After homogenizing the soil is at 10 seconds disintegration time...", this sentence should be better rewritten.
Author’s Responses: Thank you for your comment, it have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see lines 175-177.
Comment#8 (Line 198): "...increasing...", it should be "increases" here.
Author’s Responses: Thank you for your comment, it have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 199.
Comment#9 (Line 211): "... and the passing through percentage is 57 % 16 mm sieve", this should be better rewritten.
Author’s Responses: Thank you for your comment, it have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 212.
Comment#10: Authors should improve the legend graphics on Figures from 7 to 13.
Author’s Responses: Thank you for your comment, the legends and Figures have been updated.
Comment#11: Authors consider the disaggregation time as one of the main parameter affecting the efficacy of further mixing procedure with binder materials. However, it also generally reported that solid material-binder mixtures can be significantly affected by the chemical properties of the investigated solid material. For instance, the soluble salts and sulphate content can be a concerning issue as reported by some recent work such as: "Ferraro A., Farina I., Race M., Colangelo F., Cioffi R., Fabbricino M. (2019) Pre-treatments of MSWI fly-ashes: a comprehensive review to determine optimal conditions for their reuse and/or environmentally sustainable disposal. Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology, 18 (3), 453–471. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11157-019-. Authors could report some discussion about this
perspective in order to provide a more complete overview of the topic.
Author’s Responses: Thank you for your comment, the sources has been cited in the discussion. Please see lines 323-326 and 434.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
See the attached.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Author’s Responses to Comments of the Reviewer 2
We have revised our manuscript in accordance with the reviewers’ comments to improve the manuscript. We are sincerely grateful to the reviewers for their elaborated comments. We respond to each review comment or suggestion made by the reviewers in detail below.
Reviewer #2: Comments and author’s response.
I have carefully read the manuscript and completed my review.
Specific comments - Grammar and technical error Line 23: an extra space after "soil". Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 23. Line 24: prior- treatment -> prior to treatment Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 24. Line 24: "binder" should not be a keyword here. Nothing is done with binder. Author’s Responses: It have been removed, please see line 24. Line 27: an extra space after "soil" Author’s Responses: It have been removed, please see line 34. Line 36: remove "was" and "as" Author’s Responses: It have been removed, please see line 42. Table 1: Tokyo institute of technology -> Tokyo Institute of Technology. Similarly, the first letter of SGS, JGS, and highway administration in Column 1 should be capitalized. speed 136 rpm -> speed of 136 rpmAuthor’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see Table1. Column 3: cm3 -> the "3" should be a superscript. Column 2: re- mixed -> extra space Line 52: remove "2.1 Soils" Author’s Responses: It have been removed and updated to the manuscript, please see line 59. Line 56: The soil 4 -> Soil 4 Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 63. Line 61: between -> from Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 68. Table 2: saclSi, siCl, Si are not clear to readers. Author’s Responses: It have been removed from Table 2. Line 85: remove the line. Author’s Responses: It have been removed. Line 86-87: “Two types of specimens, wet and air dried, were prepared by mixing the soil with its natural water content using various disintegration times as illustrated in Table 4.” The sentence is hard to follow. Wet and air dried samples were used throughout the work. But how were they made? What is the purpose of adding extra water?Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 88-92.
Line 94: what is "micro millimeters"? Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 95. Line 97: remove "summarizes", homogenized -> homogenizing, disintegrated -> disintegrating. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 100. Line 115: Fig.s -> Figs. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 120. Line 154: sieve size -> sieve Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 160. Line 154: 16 and 17 seconds, should be 10 and 16 seconds? Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 160. Line 170: is at 10 seconds -> for 10 seconds of Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 176. Line 174: respectively. -> , respectively. Many commas before the "respectively" are missing in the following, including Line 198, 200, 205, 213, 216. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see lines 180,199, 201,206, 210,214 and 217. Figs. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12: It seems some words in the legend are missing. Author’s Responses: It have been updated, please see Figs. 7,8,9,10,11 and 12. Line 192: time -> times Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 193. Line 197: 50% -> the non-mixing sample is hard to be seen in Figure 11. Author’s Responses: The Figure 11 has been updated, please see Figure 11. Line 204: shows -> show Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 205. Line 206: content -> contents Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 207. Line 208: at -> for Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 209. Line 212: between -> to, 15 should be 17? Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 213. Line 232: time -> times, content -> contents Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 223. Line 235: disintegrated time -> disintegration times Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 226. Line 249-250: the particle size distribution changed to a poor shape -> this is hard to follow. There should be no good or poor shape for distribution. The same as in Line 286, 304, 337. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see lines 242-243, 277-278, 295 and 328. Line 273: 4D -> 4d Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 265. Line 274: properties -> property Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 266. Line 275: makes -> make Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 267. Line 325: Van der Waal's force is not surface force. Here the force between particles should be the electrostatic force, as the particles have their own charges. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 315. Line 330-331: Not true statement Author’s Responses: It have been removed. Line 335: "Temperature" is not actually discussed in this work. Author’s Responses: It have been removed. Line 342: summarizes -> A summary of Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see line 333. Line 429, 433: pay attention to the space 3. Additional questions: Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated, please see lines 418 and 424. An important parameter is missing in the Experiment part: no mixing speed is introduced. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 81-82. Line 145: the sieving test is not clearly introduced. Is it done manually or by machine? Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 93. Line 146: the percentage passing through the sieve... is not clear. What percentage is used here, weight or fraction? How is it measured? Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 152-154. In Discussion, the "mean diameter" is mentioned many times. However, the context did not state how it is measured or calculated. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 233-235.Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors properly replied to all the suggested comments and improved the overall quality of their manuscript.
According to this, the present work can be considered for publication in its current form.
Author Response
Author’s Responses to Comments of the Reviewer 1
We would like to thank you very much for improving our paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
My major concern is the Discussion presented in the current form. It is basically a repetition of the Results, as pointed out in the last time of revision. The authors failed to respond to this major issue.
See the attached.
Author Response
Author’s Responses to Comments of the Reviewer 2
We have revised our manuscript in accordance with the reviewers’ comments to improve the manuscript. We are sincerely grateful to the reviewer for the elaborated comments. We respond to review comment or suggestion made in detail below.
Reviewer #2: Comments and author’s response.
Minor issues:
Line 33-34: "Firstly to obtain the enhancement in soil strength and stiffness" is not a complete sentence. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 33-34. All the numberings of subsections underneath "3. Results" have to be updated. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript. Line 88-90: "the wet condition" should be specified. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 87. Line 213: "at 16 mm", a space is missing. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 212. Fig. 11: The contents in parentheses for T=0 seconds are not consistent with the last version Author’s Responses: Fig. 11 has been updated. Fig. 13: T=15 seconds, an extra space between 50 and %. Author’s Responses: The extra space between 50 and % was removed. Line 225: an extra space in "air- dried" Author’s Responses: The extra space was removed, please see line 221. Line 212: 57 %, extra space. Author’s Responses: The extra space was removed, please see line 208. Original version Line 330-331: "Electrostatic attraction: the movement of fine particles can lead the particles to be electrostatically charged", in this statement, the author flipped the fact. It is not necessarily deleted. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 298-299. In fact, the movement of the particles is caused by the electrostatic forces between particles, instead of movement leading to the charge. Line 320: Effect of moisture: Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 300. Line 238: Figs. -> Fig. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 233. Line 279: 5 e -> 5e
Author’s Responses: It have been removed, please see line 255.
About median diameter (D50) and mean diameter: the median diameter and mean diameter are two different definitions. After D50 is defined in line 232-235, "mean diameter" is still used in the following discussion. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 231-316. Line 323: [36] -> Ferraro et al. reported that .... put the [36] in the end. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 303-306.
Major issue:
Unfortunately, the authors failed to address the concern over the Discussion part. The current Discussion is a repetition of the results, instead of systematically addressing each factor. See the suggestions in the last revision. At least, removing the repetition is necessary. The median diameter can be a highlight to be discussed along with other factors.
Author’s Responses: Thank you for the valuable comment. The repetition was removed from the discussion part and from some parts in results. The median diameter was highlight and discussed with other factors.
Please see lines 149, 154, 170, 191, 201 and 231-312.
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Line 87-89: since one specimen is wet and the other is air-dried, "two wet specimens" are not correct. "wet" should be removed in line 87 and line 89. Line 229-230: "sample's mass" is not correct here. The definition in the last version for D50 is fine. Line 234: "after homogenized the soil" -> "after the soil is homogenized..." "mean particle diameters" in line 233, 235, 236, 246, 255, 258, 269, 274, Table 5, can be replaced by D50. Line 236-237: "after homogenizing the soil" -> after the soil being homogenized Line 246: After homogenizing the natural soil for -> After the natural soil being homogenized for... The same for line 256 Line 289: [35] -> Ref[35]Author Response
Author’s Responses to Comments of the Reviewers
We have revised our manuscript in accordance with the reviewers’ comments to improve the manuscript. We are sincerely grateful to the reviewer for the elaborated comments. We respond to review comment or suggestion made in detail below.
Reviewer #2: Comments and author’s response.
Since one specimen is wet and the other is air-dried, "two wet specimens" are not correct. "wet" should be removed in line 87 and line 89. Author’s Responses: the extra word wet was removed, please see line 78-89. Line 229-230: "sample's mass" is not correct here. The definition in the last version for D50 is fine. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 229-231. Line 234: "after homogenized the soil" -> "after the soil is homogenized. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 234-235. "mean particle diameters" in line 233, 235, 236, 246, 255, 258, 269, 274, Table 5, can be replaced by D50. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see lines 232-273 and Table 5. Line 236-237: "after homogenizing the soil" -> after the soil being homogenized. Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 237. Line 246: After homogenizing the natural soil for -> After the natural soil being homogenized for... The same for line 256 Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 246 and 255-256. Line 289: [35] -> Ref[35] Author’s Responses: It have been revised and updated to the manuscript, please see line 288-289.
