Finite Element Modelling and Experimental Validation of the Graphite Cutting Process

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article can be proposed for publication after major revision. The following recommendations should be considered when revising:

1.    It is absolutely insufficient to report in the introduction that there are few publications on the study of graphite cutting mechanism. It is necessary to cite these works in the reference list and analyze these publications.

2.    There is a great number of studies on modeling the fracture of brittle materials. Perhaps some aspects of the fracture mechanism of graphite are different from those of other brittle materials such as ceramics, cast iron, etc. However, the general principles of modeling the fracture of brittle materials are the same. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze such studies. Only then the novelty of this study can be formulated.

3.    It is not clear what role the symbol f plays in Figure 1. An arrow is sufficient to show the direction of motion.

4.    It is not clear why in Figures 5, 8 - 13 the direction of motion is shown with an arrow and the symbol f, and not with the symbol V.

5.    In Figure 16, an enlarged image of the experimentally obtained chips is to be given. The magnification should be chosen so high that it is possible to compare whether the shape of the experimentally obtained chips really corresponds to the chips modeled using the FEM model. Otherwise, the reviewer and possible readers of the paper are obliged to take the authors' word for it.

6.    In order to perform the graphite cutting process model correspondence analysis given in Section 3.2.4, it is necessary to present the data outlined in the study by Wang [24]. Otherwise, it is impossible to assess whether these simulations really correspond to each other, as indicated by the authors.

7.    In the conclusion, instead of general reasoning and characterization of the completed work should contain specific conclusions on the results of the study. The conclusion that the simulation results establish that the chip size is equal to the depth of cut is trivial. It has already been repeatedly obtained in many other studies.

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper develops an FEM of the graphite cutting process using ABAQUS/Explicit software to determine the cutting mechanism of graphite. Some suggestions are as follows:

1. The Introduction provides a lengthy description of the wear characteristics and cutting performance of coated tools, but it is less relevant to this paper;

2. More discussion about the importance of graphite cutting process simulation is needed in the Introduction;

3. There are significant similarities between this paper and reference [24] in terms of purpose and conclusions, thus it is necessary to emphasize the methodological innovations of this paper.

4. There is redundancy in line 94, "...The cutting speed v of the tool moves in the -X-direction, and the cutting direction is f."

5. The paper lacks some necessary literature citations, such as line 118, "...also known as the Tyson polygon, which was pioneered by the Russian mathematician Georgy Voronoi...", and line 127, "Voronoi structures are widely used in the literature for stochastic modelling of polycrystalline materials...".

6. Grammatical issues need to be checked, such as line 86 "...In this paper, the finite element simulation method is used to conduct a finite element modelling analysis of the processing of graphite, and the FEM is verified by comparison with experiments." does not maintain tense consistency with other content.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I thank the authors for the revision of the manuscript.