Interaction of Carbon, Titanium, and Boron in Micro-Alloy Steels and Its Effect on Hot Ductility

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General Comments: I find the manuscript quite interesting; it could be useful to readers. However, some changes must be made to improve the quality of the article.

The English should be revised by a professional English translator or, at least, be more carefully written. For example, there are missed articles and on other occasions is just the opposite, they should be deleted; position of adverbs; use “commas” in very long sentences, it helps to properly read the text (line 71); etc.

Other examples in the abstract:

after steel sample melting, solidification, and cooling to the test temperature.
after the steel sample was melted, solidified, and cooled to the test temperature.

It was concluded that Titanium and Boron were concluded to improve hot ductility.
Titanium and Boron were concluded to improve hot ductility.
Or
It was concluded that titanium and boron were effective in improving the hot ductility.

 

The name of the atoms should not be written in capital letters; please, change it in the whole manuscript.

Lines 8, 10, 15, 23-25,… I feel uncomfortable with separated words between lines, it does not help to read the manuscript.

Line 34.- “[2-3]” instead of “[2], [3]”.

Line 39.- “the results revealed an improvement in the hot ductility of steels with an increasing boron content,” instead of “results revealed an improvement of the hot ductility of steels at increasing boron content,”.

Line 46.- “of casting defects” instead of “of the casting defects”.

Line 58.- Please use the International System of Units (s).

Figure 2.- I would recommend using texture in lines to differentiate them when printing in gray scale.

“Figure 2. Distribution obtained from Thermo-Calc of boron in phases and precipitates depending on the carbon content: (a) For 0.10wt% C, 50 ppm Ti, 30ppm N, and 110 ppm B; (b) For 0.24wt% C, 50 ppm Ti, 30ppm N, and 110 ppm B.” instead of “Figure 2. Thermo-Calc. Distribution of Boron in phases and precipitates depending on the Carbon 102 content. (a) for 0.10wt% C, 50 ppm Ti, 30ppm N, 110 ppm B, (b) for 0.24wt% C, 50 ppm Ti, 103 30ppm N, 110 ppm B.” Please, rewrite accordingly other similar figure captions.

Line 107.- “plays a very” instead of “plays very”.

Line 120.- Content may be in singular.

Line 122.- Please unify the criteria of the space between number and units. Sometimes the authors use it (line 122), another does not (line 117).

Line 129, Line 168 (twice), Line 179, 198, 229.- There is an additional space; please delete it.

Line 153.- Please, do not separate the number from the units (use Ctrl-Shift-Space).

Figures 6 and 16, line 289.- Use subscript when necessary.

Line 171.- Please, delete the first article “The”.

Line 172.- “It can be found either in a…” instead of “It can have either”.

Figures 6, 8, 9, 10… It would be necessary to improve the images. Draw a bigger scale bar in those figures, it is hardly visible.

Figures 12-15.- Please, eliminate the heading of both figures; they are not necessary as in the figure caption they are already described.

Line 235.- Please remove the repeated dash.

Line 237.- “in the whole 800°C - 1250°C temperature range” instead of “in the whole temperature range 800°C - 1250°C”.

Reference 6.- The font is not Palatino Linotype and the size is also not the same as the rest of the references.

References 2, 4-6.- “och” is Swedish, not English.

References 3, 7-8.- “et al.” instead of “at al.”.

There are only 8 references; more search of previous works is a must.

Author Response

Author's reply to the Review Report of Reviewer 1 is included in the PDF-file attached

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1.Chap.1:

-The introduction is very modest.

- More extensively literature analysis focused to the influence of
   microalloying elements and their interaction with interstitial elements with
   the target to observation of ductility is missing, e.g.
   [Materials 2021, 14, 1988. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14081988 and
   Materials 2022, 15, 922.   https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15030922]

2. Chap.2:

-The 2 kg bar cannot be named as "ingot"! Also the geometrical dimensions
  of bar are missing.

-The sentence "The hot ductility test samples, L=121.5 mm, ø10 mm, with 
  threaded ends, have been machined of ingots. The tests were performed
  with Gleeble 3800  by sample melting, solidifying, and 3 K/sec. cooling to
  the test temperature. " is very incorrect. During sample testing was
  achieved “sample  melting"?

- What was the reheating temperature and holding time before testing at
  Gleeble?

- Tab.1: What method for identification of chemical composition was used?

- In Tab.1 is necessary to give concentration of Phosphorus and Oxygen.

- What was the history of sample processing before their testing at Gleeble?

- What method for measurement of reduction of area was used?

- The definition of cooling conditions is missing.

- The experimental schedule is not clearly defined.

3. Chap.3.1:

- The probability of complex carbonitrides NbTiCN, TiNbCN occurrence is
   very low with reference to  standard free  enthalpy for elements merging.

- What was the stoichiometry ratio of elements at carbonitrides precipitates
  NbTiCN, TiNbCN?

4. Chap.3.2:

 - Identification of precipitates given at Fig.6,8,9,10,11 is necessary to fill up
   by electron diffractions.

Author Response

Author's reply to the Reviewer 2 Report has been attached as a PDF-file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is accepted at present form.