Reliability-Based Fire Resistance Periods for Buildings in England

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is well written.

However, the method of selection of literature for the review is not presented. Therefore, it is advised to include a methodology section in the paper. 

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for taking the time to read our paper. The reviewer only provided one comment:

"The method of selection of literature for the review is not presented. Therefore, it is advised to include a methodology section in the paper."

The literature review is narrative in nature and chronological. Limited research has been undertaken on the topic. Therefore, the review need not be systematic as there are only so many papers available and these have largely been discussed. We have noted at the outset of Section 2 that the literature review is of a narrative chronological type. Given the paper is not focussed on a review, but more the application of a novel series of concepts, we consider this to suffice in addressing the reviewer's comment.

Reviewer 2 Report

As far as I am concerned, the impact of this research paper is valuable, in terms of scientific novelty and coherency. Therefore, the structure, content and emphasis of this investigation is critical as it sheds light on how reliability-based concepts can be adopted to determine fire resistance periods for buildings in England.

 

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this paper as it appears to be a well-deserved work reflecting adequately the grey zones in this research topic. Under these circumstances, the current reviewer suggests acceptance and publishing, after considering some minor points indicated in the attached file, of the current paper in Fire.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for their kind comments and time taken to review our paper.

We have noted the several editorial comments that were made, which are addressed in the revised manuscript and are not discussed further here. In respect of the comments that affected the content, two were made, with our amendments noted below:

(1) "Stretch the novelty of the present investigation!"

In the introduction, we have elaborated on why we feel the work is novel. Please see the tracked changes.

(2) "This paragraph should be substantially revised or at least rephrased. Several of these sentences are identical with those given in Section 1."

This was noted and agreed. We have revised the opening paragraph to the conclusions. Please see the tracked changes in the manuscript.