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Peer review report 2 on “Determination of the softening curve and fracture toughness of high-strength concrete exposed to high temperature”
Engineering Fracture Mechanics 133 Supplement 1 (2015) 296–297
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Engineering Fracture Mechanics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engfracmech
Peer Review Report
Peer review report 2 on ‘‘Determination of the softening curve and fracture toughness of high-strength concrete exposed to high temperature” Original Submission Recommendation Major amendments required Comments to the author This paper conduces a series of TPB test for high strength concrete exposed in high temperature. Double-K parameters are calculated using analytical and weight function methods. Some interested conclusions are obtained. There are some issues in the manuscript, as summarized in the following. 1. Usually, the high strength concrete is used in the steel-reinforced concrete structure. The damages of these concrete elements are not caused by the crack unstable propagation, even though the elements are exposed in high temperature. So, good discussion and insight are requested on the reason why the authors deal with this subject. 2. The test method shown in Fig. 1 is not correct. The measured displacement includes an additional deformation caused by the support settlement, resulting in an overestimating of displacement value. 3. Many papers about double-K model have been published, and some conclusions obtained in section 4.3 have been verified in previous research. The authors are encouraged to discuss the fracture characters of materials presented in this manuscript, rather than verify double-k model. 4. On Page 8, the calculated details of using ‘‘Consoft” and ‘‘evolutionary algorithms” should be added. 5. Some variable symbols are not consist with the ones listed in Nomenclature, e.g. KunWB and KunWE on Page 12. 6. On Page 11, ac = D? ‘‘D” cannot be found in Eq. 4. Meanwhile, there are many grammar mistakes in the manuscript. The English writing should be improved to make the manuscript much more readable and points clearer. There are no line numbers in the manuscript so that it is difficult to point out the position of issues. Overall, thorough checks should be made throughout the paper.
First Revision Recommendation Do not publish Comments to the author I don’t see a significant improvement in the revised version, although the authors responded these comments. To my best knowledge, some issues can’t be addressed well and some explanation are not reasonable, which are summarized as following.
DOI of published article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engfracmech.2015.10.023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engfracmech.2015.10.026
Peer Review Report / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 133 Supplement 1 (2015) 296–297
297
Question1 I don’t think the authors have answered this question using an example of columns without any steel fibers. Do the designers expect to employ the tensile property of a high strength concrete in a column? This issue is not associate with a high strength concrete with/without steel fibers. Question2 The authors pronounced that the displacement gauge is not precise enough to measure the tiny deformation caused by the support settlement, and an image correlation method was used. But I don’t find the details about DIC method in the revision, including figures and illustration. Meanwhile, the authors still mentioned how to measure the displacement in the revision, quoting as ‘‘The deflection at the loading point (d) was measured by two displacement gauges.” So I am not satisfied with this response. Question 3 The authors mentioned their previous work and the work in another paper. If this paper only focuses on verifying the validity of double-K model in the high strength concrete, its innovation is very week. So I don’t recommend the publication of this paper in Engineering Fracture Mechanics Second Submission Recommendation Publish Comments to the author The authors addressed the concerns carefully and the revisions were performed satisfactorily in this revised version. So the paper can be accepted for the possible publication in Engineering Fracture Mechanics. Anonymous reviewer
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Engineering Fracture Mechanics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engfracmech
Peer Review Report
Peer review report 2 on ‘‘Determination of the softening curve and fracture toughness of high-strength concrete exposed to high temperature” Original Submission Recommendation Major amendments required Comments to the author This paper conduces a series of TPB test for high strength concrete exposed in high temperature. Double-K parameters are calculated using analytical and weight function methods. Some interested conclusions are obtained. There are some issues in the manuscript, as summarized in the following. 1. Usually, the high strength concrete is used in the steel-reinforced concrete structure. The damages of these concrete elements are not caused by the crack unstable propagation, even though the elements are exposed in high temperature. So, good discussion and insight are requested on the reason why the authors deal with this subject. 2. The test method shown in Fig. 1 is not correct. The measured displacement includes an additional deformation caused by the support settlement, resulting in an overestimating of displacement value. 3. Many papers about double-K model have been published, and some conclusions obtained in section 4.3 have been verified in previous research. The authors are encouraged to discuss the fracture characters of materials presented in this manuscript, rather than verify double-k model. 4. On Page 8, the calculated details of using ‘‘Consoft” and ‘‘evolutionary algorithms” should be added. 5. Some variable symbols are not consist with the ones listed in Nomenclature, e.g. KunWB and KunWE on Page 12. 6. On Page 11, ac = D? ‘‘D” cannot be found in Eq. 4. Meanwhile, there are many grammar mistakes in the manuscript. The English writing should be improved to make the manuscript much more readable and points clearer. There are no line numbers in the manuscript so that it is difficult to point out the position of issues. Overall, thorough checks should be made throughout the paper.
First Revision Recommendation Do not publish Comments to the author I don’t see a significant improvement in the revised version, although the authors responded these comments. To my best knowledge, some issues can’t be addressed well and some explanation are not reasonable, which are summarized as following.
DOI of published article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engfracmech.2015.10.023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engfracmech.2015.10.026
Peer Review Report / Engineering Fracture Mechanics 133 Supplement 1 (2015) 296–297
297
Question1 I don’t think the authors have answered this question using an example of columns without any steel fibers. Do the designers expect to employ the tensile property of a high strength concrete in a column? This issue is not associate with a high strength concrete with/without steel fibers. Question2 The authors pronounced that the displacement gauge is not precise enough to measure the tiny deformation caused by the support settlement, and an image correlation method was used. But I don’t find the details about DIC method in the revision, including figures and illustration. Meanwhile, the authors still mentioned how to measure the displacement in the revision, quoting as ‘‘The deflection at the loading point (d) was measured by two displacement gauges.” So I am not satisfied with this response. Question 3 The authors mentioned their previous work and the work in another paper. If this paper only focuses on verifying the validity of double-K model in the high strength concrete, its innovation is very week. So I don’t recommend the publication of this paper in Engineering Fracture Mechanics Second Submission Recommendation Publish Comments to the author The authors addressed the concerns carefully and the revisions were performed satisfactorily in this revised version. So the paper can be accepted for the possible publication in Engineering Fracture Mechanics. Anonymous reviewer