Development of a Mechanistic Method to Obtain Load Position Strain in Instrumented Pavement

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a well-written and carefully structured paper that presents a comprehensive characterization of the in-situ response and performance of road structures. The paper is based on a very strong and detailed analisys of the material studied.

I have a few comments that might be usefully addressed to improve the overall quality of the paper:

• In table 3 you have the values for layers modulus which looks quite big. How did author choose these values?
• The main content of the paper is very well written, but the conclusions need improvement, now they are vaguely written text in order to highlight the results obtained.
• The experimental program is detailed and the quality of the results’ discussion in its current form satisfies the requirements necessary for a research paper.

The paper is therefore very well suited to this journal. The authors are to be commended on the professional quality of the research and the paper. Also, some thoughts are due on future developments, especially on the practical applicability of this method.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper "Development of a mechanistic method to obtain load position strain in instrumented pavement" is interesting and the subject addressed is within the scope of the Journal. I have some questions for the authors, but I think it is a nice piece of work.

1. In the abstract please substitute "reasonable accuracy" with more scientific details.
2. The paper doesn't give any detail about the actual data aquisition and procedure to calculate the required information from the sensor readings. Especially the procedure to handle moisture effects to interpret sensor readings to the actual pavement life is not discussed.
3. All equations should be referenced and cited before they appear.
4. The information about the applied sensors is again intersting - but no discussion about alternatives and the way of choice is given.
5. Please consider the recent paper: Bruno, S.; Del Serrone, G.; Di Mascio, P.; Loprencipe, G.; Ricci, E.; Moretti, L. Technical Proposal for Monitoring Thermal and Mechanical Stresses of a Runway Pavement. Sensors 2021, 21, 6797. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21206797 
6. lines 89, 91, 151: BISAR 3.0 should be referenced.
7. BISAR 3.0 is adopted in this studdy. What are other feasible alternatives? What are the advantages of adopting this software over others in this case? How will this affect the results? The authors should provide more details on this.
8. Units in figure 3 lack.
9. Legend in Figure 5 is not correct.
10. Please add the Discussion section.
11. The conclusion section should be revised.
12. The reference section should be verified because they do not comploy with the Journal style. Reference #15 is not complete

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, please explain the importance of the work in the field of pavement engineering. In fact, this work has very limited merits to be published. Following comment can improve the manuscript for readers:

Authors should try to highlight the innovation of this research in Introduction and expand it.

In first paragraph of Introduction: please add relevant references and try to specify which reference is corresponding to a specific sentence.

What do you mean by “one factor that must be taken into account is whether the wheel of the vehicle passes directly above the sensor”?

The Introduction must be extended for better understanding and to provide a context to highlight the innovation of the work.

Section 2.2: Please explain BISAR3.0?? (Theories behind it)

Add references for Eq 1.

Section 3: Please specify the location of felid section and add more information on its real situation. In general, more conditions and structural systems must be examined.

The quality of figures is not acceptable.

There is a critical need to discuss your results regarding the previous studies.

Please rewrite the conclusion section with more consideration on real scale aspects.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper can be accepted

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much!

Reviewer 3 Report

The majority of comments have been considered. I ask you to add references which confirm the results in the discussion section (if it is applicable).

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable comments. We have checked the discussion section and add references in the latest revised manuscript. 

Thanks again!