One-Dimensional Strain Research of Coral Mud Based on a Modified Burgers Model Considering Stress History

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article deals with the issue of specifying and modifying the mathematical understanding of the model of one-dimensional coral mud deformations. The authors of the article supported the mathematical calculations with laboratory tests.

However, the article needs some corrections. Some of them I put in the text of the article, which I attach to the review, and some of them I put below:

1. Formulas (4), (9) and (10) are incorrectly formatted, so they are not visible in their entirety and cannot be verified.

2. No methodological description of sampling and preparation. It is not known how many samples were taken, in what size, and how they were prepared for laboratory tests. There is no information about the number of tests performed for one sample, were the experiments repeated or rather based on single results?

3. Please remember that the first time an abbreviation appears in the text, always put its explanation in brackets.

4. The course of the experiment is poorly described. No explanation as to why the last stage for each sample lasted 8 days.

5. Fig. 3a and 9 - why did the first stage last longer than 8 days (according to the chart, about 12.5 days)??

6. Fig. 7 - correct the description of the horizontal axis to integer values distributed on a scale

7. Parameter units are missing from most drawings

8. The beginning of the sentence in line 248 - the description is imprecise. It indicates that the duration of the experiment was shortened with successive cycles of compression, which is untrue according to the description of the course of the research.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to reviewer :

Thank you for your comments and suggestions, we have revised our manuscript and the following is the response according to your comments.

 

Comment 1. Formulas (4), (9) and (10) are incorrectly formatted, so they are not visible in their entirety and cannot be verified.

Response 1. Formulas (4), (9) and (10) have been modified to visible forms.

 

Comment 2. No methodological description of sampling and preparation. It is not known how many samples were taken, in what size, and how they were prepared for laboratory tests. There is no information about the number of tests performed for one sample, were the experiments repeated or rather based on single results?

Response 2. Added description of sampling and preparation in line 10-106. Due to the long duration of the experiment, only one experiment was conducted per group.

 

Comment 3. Please remember that the first time an abbreviation appears in the text, always put its explanation in brackets.

Response 3. The abbreviation in line 97 has been modified.

 

Comment 4. The course of the experiment is poorly described. No explanation as to why the last stage for each sample lasted 8 days.

Response 4. This issue is explained in line 112-113.

 

Comment 5. Fig. 3a and 9 - why did the first stage last longer than 8 days (according to the chart, about 12.5 days)??

Response 5. This was a small mistake in the initial experimental design. At first, I was not sure if the soil could deform and stabilize within 8 days, so I spent a few more days to obtain another reading point, so the first stage was extended. In fact, the overall deformation in these days is very small. And since the experiment in this article is conducted on a logarithmic time scale, the additional days will have almost no impact on the subsequent experimental process.

 

Comment 6. Fig. 7 - correct the description of the horizontal axis to integer values distributed on a scale.

Response 6. Figure 7 has been modified.

 

Comment 7. Parameter units are missing from most drawings.

Response 7. Fig.5 is a schematic diagram without units; Fig.7, Fig.10, Fig.12 and Fig.13 have been modified.

 

Comment 8. The beginning of the sentence in line 248 - the description is imprecise. It indicates that the duration of the experiment was shortened with successive cycles of compression, which is untrue according to the description of the course of the research.

Response 8. This sentence describes common assumptions, while I describe the different conclusions drawn from my research in the following text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The submitted paper deals with one-dimensional strain tests on coral mud and the description of results using a modified burgers model.

The modified model seems reasonable better than the original Burger model for predictions over large amunts of time describing a continuous deformation tends to 0 over time instead of constantly growing. Fitting to raw data in the whole range of stress time appears also better in Figure 6. However, I find within the paper a deep discussion on the suitability of this modified model for all kind of sediments or only for the specific case of coral mud. The model seem also superior to account for stress history.

I do not feel qualified to judge the subtleties of the time-strain depedencies derived from the model and I strongly advice a revision of this part by someone with the due expertise.

Regarding the material section I find a lack of description of the methods used to obtain the basic properties of coral mud, but also I do not see how this properties (or their quantification) are relevant to the undertaken research as this physical parameters do not seem to be part of the model. Again, this goes in the direction to discuss whether the model is intended exclusively for coral mud with a given physical properties or could apply to a larger range of sediments/rocks.

Please find an annotated version of the paper with some specific comments regarding the first part of the paper.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

English quality is standard with only some small issues, I have highlighted some of them in the annotated version of the paper. 

Author Response

Response to reviewer 2:

Thank you for your comments and suggestions, we have revised our manuscript and the following is the response according to your comments.

 

We have added a simple method description for obtaining physical parameters in line 94.