Analysis of Rainfall Infiltration and Improvement of the Analytical Solution of Safety Factors on Unsaturated Inner Dump Slopes: A Case Study
Veronica Girardi
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors
In my opinion the theme of the article is very actual and interesting for the readers of the journal.
The paper is well structured, but I think that it is very big, such a report, it should be improved.
The title and abstract clearly describe the content of the manuscript, and the language is correct and clear.
Also Results, discussion and Conclusion are very well and interesting.
In my opinion no revision is needed.
Best regards
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciated all of your constructive comments and suggestions. We have carefully revised the manuscript to address all the comments and suggestions. Please see the attachment. Hopefully the revised version of the manuscript is now acceptable for publication. If there are more changes needed, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for your help and I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In this manuscript, the authors presented a novel improved analytical method to determine/locate the dangerous/sliding surface inside the open pit slope under different conditions of different rainfall infiltration scenarios. Also, the authors investigate the open pit slope safety factors of each different rainfall infiltration scenarios. The proposed improved analytical method in this manuscript was verified by the case study. All the study in this manuscript can provide the theoretical prediction of the dangerous/sliding surfaces inside the slope.
This manuscript can be accepted with the following revisions:
1. The title of this manuscript can be simplified to make the topic of this manuscript clearer.
2. Grammar errors should be thoroughly checked and corrected.
3. In Figure 1, it will better that the authors give the definition of the "1", and the caption line can be more detailed.
4. Figure 4 is hard to read, the authors need to draw a new one to make it clear to read and understand.
5. Equations (19), (20), (21), (22) should be re-arranged.
6. From line 304 to line 311, the description/explanation of Figs. 7-8 is hard to understand, the authors should present a readable description/explanation of Figs. 7-8.
7. In Figure 10, the authors should present the definition of the two symbols i and λ in Y and X axial, respectively.
8. Some of the equations should be re-arranged to match the format of the template.
9. Line 202 and Line 219 should be subtitles.
10. It will be better if the authors add some discussion before the conclusion part.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciated all of your constructive comments and suggestions. We have carefully revised the manuscript to address all the comments and suggestions. Please see the attachment. Hopefully the revised version of the manuscript is now acceptable for publication. If there are more changes needed, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for your help and I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I believe that the work is extremely bad explained, so much that I am unable to understand if the work is scientifically valid or not. The innovation of the work should be better highlighted. If you are proposing a tool to validate other numerical techniques it should be better emphasized.
English is not sufficient for a journal publication. Should be seriously reviewed.
I can't follow what is the idea behind this analytical expression you are proposing, the schematization of the physical process done by the authors is not clear. The introduction is poor in references, it seems like they are jumping from a topic to another in a very non-organized manner.
It is not clear what is adding to current knowledge, how is the work useful to other researchers and engineers, plus the entire concept of simplifying the infiltration process in the slope looks "old" to me, there is plenty of codes out there able to model in a proficient manner unsaturated soil behavior, infiltration, mechanical parameters modification due to suction variations, and they are fully validated and computationally efficient.
The concept of FS is somehow "old" too. There are plenty of examples where it is has been proved that FS is a "limiting" concept to assess slope stability and its evolution, compared to investigating/analyzing strain, either with small or large displacement numerical approaches (FEM, MPM, SPH).
The hypothesis behind the FS expression are very limiting, there are many other scenarios that should be considered, I don't see the expression having enough generalization.
The example proposed (field application study) to apply the analytical expression is poorly explained, not that useful.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciated all of your constructive comments and suggestions. We have carefully revised the manuscript to address all the comments and suggestions. Please see the attachment. Hopefully the revised version of the manuscript is now acceptable for publication. If there are more changes needed, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for your help and I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
1.The article contains many inaccuracies. In particular, formula (1) contains a notation (hf) that is not described in the text .
2.There are phrases that are repeated three times.
3. Obviously, there is an error in the notation in formula (15)
4.It is not clear how expression (17) is derived from expressions (15) and (16). Where did the logarithm come from? Have you integrated anything?
5. Equation (23) appeared out of nowhere. Clearly a citation is needed.
6. In formula (26), the value A is obtained by integration. But it is not clear which function was integrated to get the arcsine.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciated all of your constructive comments and suggestions. We have carefully revised the manuscript to address all the comments and suggestions. Please see the attachment. Hopefully the revised version of the manuscript is now acceptable for publication. If there are more changes needed, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for your help and I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The author has not answered in a complete manner my questions, they have not improved the paper that much, only minor changes and formal changes, and still have not been able to stress the accent on the convenience of using the approach they proposed. The title does not reflect the paper content. In addition, the paper contents are not even pertinent with the section "Energy systems", the introduction is not even shaped in a manner to make it compatible with this section of Processes journal.
I attach the paper with some of my contents, I again suggest to improve the case study section.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciated all of your constructive comments and suggestions. We have carefully revised the manuscript to address all the comments and suggestions. Please see the attachment. Hopefully the revised version of the manuscript is now acceptable for publication. If there are more changes needed, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for your help and I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
