Preliminary Design Proposals for Dovetail Wood Board Elements in Multi-Story Building Construction
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Title: Preliminary Design Proposals for Dovetail Wood Board Elements in Multi-Story Building Construction
Authors: Hüseyin Emre Ilgın and Markku Karjalainen
General
The article describes the preliminary design proposal for joining wooden boards into larger structural elements using the dovetail technique, the main advantage of which is to replace the use of adhesives and metallic fasteners. The article is clearly written and contains a nice and detailed introduction. In addition, the authors show with pictures very nicely their idea of connecting wooden elements with dovetail joints.
Minor Comments
The authors note that similar construction elements are not yet widely used and it is difficult to make comparisons with glued elements, but the authors can still point to possible weaknesses or problems. The first major drawback is the dimensional stability of such a structural element. With existing cross-glued wood, the dimensional stability of the structural element is improved when the equilibrium moisture content of the wood changes. In the case of using only dovetail without gluing the boards, a large decrease in the equilibrium moisture content compared to the equilibrium moisture content during the manufacture and assembly of the boards can lead to a greater shrinkage of the wood and thus to the appearance of airiness between the individual boards, which can lead to an undesirable reduction in the wall stiffness.
Another major disadvantage of wood is the greatly reduced strength of wood in the radial and tangential directions, which means that in certain configurations such as those shown in Figures 5 and 8, the tail may break in the transverse direction due to its small cross-section of the loaded part.
I therefore suggest that the authors mention in their article the described probable weak points.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic is interesting, innovative and aligned with the current environmental concerns. EWPs based on adhesive free solutions are a valuable alternative to petroleum based materials while the recent technological advances (CAD/CAM, CNC, etc.) allow to reinterpret ancient techniques for joining avoiding the use of metal fasteners and adhesives.
The paper is well organized and easy to read. The state-of-the-art is good however some improvement can be made (see the attached document). The paper reports a first step (called by the authors Preliminary) of a wide study. The first design concepts are presented and discussed. However, no validation (numerical or experimental) is presented. And this is of course, the main drawback of the work. Therefore, I recommend to assume that in the discussion (that no verification has been made for the moment) and to present the further steps, that must include the verification of the design concepts presented here.
More detailed comments (very few) are presented in the attachment.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The topic seems to be very interesting, however I have some suggestions for the authors. I do not see any reason to divide Introduction and Litererature revision on two part when methodology is based on literarure review.
I agree with the idea at all. But I consider that some disadvantages of presented dovetails or their potential disadvantages such as difficulites with performing, durability of that joints, etc.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
