Influence of Sheet Covers on Filling Behavior in Electrochemical Joining of Additively Manufactured Components

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Electrochemical joininng of AMed resin parts is a novel idea.  But the content of this paper lacks significance. The influence of cathodic geometry on Cu deposition has been reported a lot. The numerical model has been developed by other researchers and only the geometry is different. So, the manuscript should be major revised before accepted. The comments are given as follows:

1. Title: What kind of AMed materials should be clarified. 

2. Introduction: The logic is not clear. The cited literatures [10-13] has a low relevance to this work. It is hard to understand the motivation of this paper. The following points should be clearly presented in this paper:

--Why do AMed parts need welding or joining? Specifically, why do AMed parts made of single material (Siraya Tech Fast Resin in this paper) need joining? It is easy to print complex geometry without machining or joining. The motivation of this research is hard to understand.

--There is any other joining method for AMed resin parts? How about their performance and efficiency? What are electrochemical joining's advantages?

--There is any ref. involved in electrochemical joining? How about their work?

3. Sec. 2.1: 

--Eq. (2): why is there u, the velocity vetor (m/s)? This work did not consider the flow field and its convection effect on ions transfer.

--Key parameters for simulation should be given. 

4. Sec. 3:

--Authors only discussed the influence of the geometry of the cover and the joining zone on the filling behavior. It is not enough. EC joining of AMed resin parts is a novel method. But considering the great difference of physical and chemical properties between base material (resin) and filling material (Cu), the joint strength is the major concern. At least, the joint strength of some samples should be given to prove this EC joining method is workable. This can improve the significance of the content.

Author Response

Thank you for your review, please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

 

1. The subject addressed in the paper is of current interest and consistent with the journal's profile.

2. The authors used modern methods and equipment for simulation and experimental research of the investigated process.

3. For equation (13), a bibliographic reference should be inserted because the variant used for Faraday's law is not widely known.

4. Isn't the maximum element size of 1.48 mm already too big (in line 157)?

5. The physical quantity on the right should be mentioned in the graphical representation in Figure 3.

6. When reference is made to the work [10] (in line 35), it is necessary to write "Gill et al." since M. Gill is not the only author of the cited work.

7. In the case of different equipment and appliances used, it is necessary to mention the manufacturer and the country where the manufacturer is located.

8. As follows from Figure 4, the authors performed the experimental tests by depositing metallic material in the channel of a single part, not addressing the problem of "electrochemical joining", as mentioned in the article's title. Some information would be needed regarding the possible distinct behavior of the single part on which metallic material has been deposited to the behavior of a joint of two parts.

9. Is there any information about the material of the cover plate somewhere in the paper? What conditions must this material meet? How is the adhesion of this material to the metal part ensured?

10. In line 202, it is mentioned: "As soon as the coating process is completed, ...". Is there any possibility of determining when "the coating process is completed"?

  11. The wording "Shown is the reciprocal of the step size over the time steps for the simulation of the filling behavior with a cover factor of 0.2 and an opening angle of 90°." from lines 283-285 seems confusing or does not seem to respect the conventions of expression in a scientific article.

12. More details on how the graphic representation in Figure 10 was arrived at would be needed.

13. The web pages indicated at the end of references [14 and [17] do not appear to be valid

14. Authors need to pay more attention to article editing.

Thus, in line 19, it does not seem necessary for the word "Design" to begin with a capital letter.

In line 64, the period must be placed after the bibliographic reference and not before it ("cover [17]." instead of "cover. [17]").

It is not recommended that units of measurement be written using italics (for example, in lines 84 and 85, but also other places in the paper). Some symbols appear to be written using bolded characters when italics should have been used (e.g., in equations (1), (2), in line 85, etc.).

At the end of equation (2), a comma should be placed, and the word "where", with which the explanation of some symbols in the relationship begins, should be started with a small letter.

On pages 3 and 4, but according to equation (15), no blank space was left at the beginning of each paragraph (blank space that can also be entered using the TAB key).

Between the number and the unit of measurement, a space is left (in line 126, it is necessary to write "5 V" instead of "5V"). According to the Instructions for authors, at the end of the legend of a figure, it is necessary to place a dot.

 

In the list of bibliographic references, the abbreviated journal names were not used.

See the comments for the authors.

Author Response

Thank you for your review, please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

All my comments have been well addressed.