Study on the Variation Characteristics of the Average Velocity of Special-Shaped Flake Particle Systems Moving in Elliptical Drums
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Major
1. It is not clear the importance of the velocity peaks in a real application. A real example is necessary.
2. The velocity peaks presented in the start-up (called inception phase) obtain by DEM simulation are not representative of the velocity that can be found in real application because the DEM model consider a constant angular speed (in t=0, omega>0), meanwhile the experimental one, in the start-up, there is an angular acceleration that will reduce those velocity peaks. An explanation of this phenomena is necessary.
3. Where are the calculation of the standard deviation?
4. A velocity profile is needed to understand the distribution of the velocities inside the drum. It seems that the mean velocity it is not representative.
Minor
References 1 to 8 are wrong formatted and references 18 to 37 have another numbering.
Line 27: it is not clear why it is important the heat transfer in this application, only velocities are study and there is not a calculation of heat or temperature in the paper.
Line 76: please change 1010 to 1010.
Line 77: please change "long and short shafts is" to "major and minor axis are".
Line 81: do not separate the table caption to its table.
Line 83: Please change "In this paper" to another phrase, the previous paragraphs start with the same phrase.
Line 105: the variable "v" must be written with the same font as the "v" shown in Eq. (1).
Line 109: Please remove "Standard deviation is usually used to evaluate the dispersion of data" because it is irrelevant, just indicate that you use standard deviation.
Line 111: Please remove "in this paper"
Line 117: "is divided"
Line 126: "84 mm" (with space)
Figure 3: if it is posible, do not separe the figure in 2 pages.
Line 143: use lower case after ";"
Figure 5: please format "(c)" in the same way as you format (a) and (b), with bold and lower case (in Line 162 it is in capital letters).
Figure 5: With your data, you can compare the particle velocity with the rotation speed of the drum.
Figure 6: please do not separe the figure.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
My review comments for the manuscript entitled “Study on the variation characteristics of average velocity of special-shaped flake particle system moving in elliptical drum”:
1. Introduction needs to be improved. The first paragraph does not provide sound background for the presented research. In addition, the last sentence in the first paragraph and the second paragraph are logically the same, why did the author separate them in two paragraphs?
2. From Figure 3, it seems that the simulated system contains more large particles than the experimental observations. Did the author use the same parameters in your simulations as in the experiments provided in Ref. 27?
3. Caption for Figure 6 is probably wrong.
4. Which type of collision model was used in DEM? No such information is provided.
5. Is it sufficient enough to use 8mm depth to capture the length scales of concerned mixing and movement bahavior?
6. In the first paragraph on Page 12, the author claims that because the equivalent area of flake particles is different, the number of collisions between flake particles and 1mm small particle is different. I did not see any data support for this claim. According to my understanding, the equivalent surface area of particles does play an important role in particle collision, however, there are other parameters such as averaged movement velocity affecting particle collision. Since the author has run the simulation and is capable for capturing particle collision, why not provide a more thorough data analysis to prove this claim?
7. Writing errors in line 75 7800 kgm-3 and line 76 7.5x1010 Pa on Page 2, in line 171 on Page 6, in line 209 on page 8,.
Author Response
- Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I believe that are not answered those questions, so I write again.
1. It is not clear the importance of the velocity peaks in a real (physical) application. A real example is necessary.
2. The velocity peaks presented in the start-up (called inception phase) obtain by DEM simulation are not representative of the velocity that can be found in real application because the DEM model consider a constant angular speed (in t=0, omega>0), meanwhile the experimental one, in the start-up, there is an angular acceleration that will reduce those velocity peaks. An explanation of this phenomena is necessary.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
After the revision, I think the manuscript is acceptable for publication at the current stage.
Author Response
Thank you very much.
