Design and Experimental Study of a Bionic Blade for Harvesting the Wild Chrysanthemum Stem

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please include my comments and suggestions given in the attached file for the improvement of the manuscript.

Thank you.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Living organisms (such as mosquitoes, rats, moles, beetles, piranhas) have adapted their body structure and covering to safe and rational performance of basic life activities. Many of these patents of nature can be an inspiration for solving engineering problems, e.g. the shapes of grinding tools, mining drills or tools for cutting canopy. Agricultural implements have been using such solutions for decades. In machines intended for stubble cultivation, working over large areas (e.g. in the USA), the mole's feet were selected as the biological pattern of the cutting disc. However, the shape of the cutting blades proposed in the work is also not innovative at all. The knife bars of machines for harvesting stem crops have been equipped with these shapes for a long time:

Therefore, they do not differ in shape from that in Figure 3. The width of the blades is also standard 76 mm.
I believe that terms 5 and 6 of the sum in equation (1) are not very important and can be safely omitted.
Modest bibliography. The manuscript contains only the economic aspect. In the case of agricultural machines operating in difficult environmental and weather conditions, durability and reliability of components are also important. It is worth mentioning it and quoting the available methods of quantifying the reliability of agricultural machines and vehicles published this year in the MDPI Publishing House, such as:

Durczak, K.; Selech, J.; Ekielski, A.; Żelaziński, T.; Waleński, M.; Witaszek, K. Using the Kaplan–Meier Estimator to Assess the Reliability of Agricultural Machinery. Agronomy 2022, 12, 1364. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12061364

Durczak, K.; Rybacki, P.; Sujak, A. Application of a Selected Pseudorandom Number Generator for the Reliability of Farm Tractors. Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 12452. https://doi.org/10.3390/app122312452

More important than energy savings is the quality of the cut, which affects the life of the cut chrysanthemum. This fact should be emphasized here.

Author Response

I have already mentioned the importance of reliability and durability of farm machinery.

In addition, the durability and reliability of agricultural machinery are also very important, and there are relatively few studies on them in the existing literature. Later, the reliability research of agricultural machinery under harsh environment should be increased.

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript is interesting and falls within the scope of the journal. However, the manuscript in its present form has several weaknesses. The following items should be adequately revised to justify a recommendation for publication.

1.      The abstract should be revised to clarify the aim of the study.

2.      The introduction should clearly state the main objectives of the study and the novelty level in detail. Make the novelty clearer and place it in the context of the existing literature.

3.      Which gap in the literature does this study intend to fill, and what contribution does it make to the literature? Please highlight more in the introduction section.

4.      Page 3 line 79: Please provide detail for Equation (1).

5.      Page 4 line 134: The authors state that ''The grid size of the wild chrysanthemum stem was set to 1 mm'. How did you find the optimum mesh size? Did you perform a mesh-sensitive test? Please justify.

6.      Please provide details of the software and sensors used in this study (e.g. Ansys (version 19, Lebanon, NH, USA)).

7.      Tables 5-6: Please add a footnote describing X1, X2, and X3.

8.      Line 272: You state that A represents the cutting-edge angle, B represents the cutting angle, and C represents the reciprocating speed. However, earlier in the article you abbreviated them as X1, X2, and X3. Please choose one of the two abbreviations to avoid confusion.

9.      Limitations are not included in the present form.

10.  Future directions are not clearly indicated.

11.   Check the English grammar. The English language is moderate. Please check all parts of the manuscript and correct grammatical errors.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Although, you have added the suggested studies of Abo-Elnor et al. and Bentaher et al., however, the study of Upadhyay et al. is not included. The authors may consider adding this additional study in the paper related to Finite Element simulation in the Introduction section. They optimized the design dimensions of a tillage implement through a soil-blade interaction study using Finite Element simulation in Ansys software.

Upadhyay, G., Raheman, H., & Rasool, S. (2017). Three dimensional modelling and stress analysis of a powered single acting disc harrow using FEA. Current Agriculture Research Journal, 5(2), 203-219.

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have greatly improved the article. The paper is now acceptable.