Simulation and Experimental Analysis of Tool Wear and Surface Roughness in Laser Assisted Machining of Titanium Alloy
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear author(s), please find below suggestions that may justify my final evaluation of the reviewed manuscript ‘Experimental and simulation analysis of tool wear and surface roughness evolution in laser assisted machining of titanium alloy’, Manuscript ID: crystals-2086731.
Generally, the paper is interesting, the topic is up-to-date and, simultaneously, the proposed method(s) are encouraging.
Nevertheless, some issues must be raised:
1. Considering the ‘Abstract’ section, it is interesting, nevertheless, I would omit to use of dependencies with formulas. They should be written and, respectively, used in the body manuscript.
2. In addition to the previous comment, there should be some words with one, general conclusion, received in the paper. Currently, detailed results are presented by the novelty is not highlighted.
3. Except for some sentences in lines 72-83, there is no critical review of the current stage of knowledge. In the mentioned lines there is written that only a few papers consider the topic presented, nevertheless, the critical review is missing. From that lack, it is difficult to justify the motivation for work, which also seems to be hidden.
4. Omitting general technique properties when measuring surface roughness by the TIME 3200 device, minimisation of measurement errors (sentence ‘In this paper, the stylus method is used to measure the surface roughness of a workpiece after machining, using a portable surface roughness tester, the TIME 3200, to measure an average of three points in the circumferential direction of the machined surface of the workpiece, thereby minimising the measurement error.’, lines 117-120) is not clear. Why three points? The circumferential direction is clear when investigating the tribological performance but, respectively, the number of points was not justified.
5. From the previous comment, the measurement uncertainty and noise were not considered so, respectively, the accuracy of the roughness measurement can be lost. Please try to refer to those issues. Look for some comprehensive analysis below:
(1) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2013.04.031
(2) https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15155137
(3) https://doi.org/10.3390/app7010054
6. I feel that many variables in the manuscript were selected arbitrarily or, at least, its value selection was not suitably justified (e.g. in lines 121-127). Each of the values must be introduced, justified or, respectively, supported by previous studies, if exist.
7. Some weaknesses (generally pros & cons) of the DEFORM-3D software application should be presented.
8. How can it be concluded that an error of around 20% (or 21.1%), lines 170-173, is acceptable? Are there any frames that allow accepting errors in that spectrum? Or maybe modelling the presented data, is acceptable? It was not justified. Looks like the criticism of the authors is missing in the whole manuscript.
9. Were the equations (3) and (4) newly proposed by the author(s)? If not, respectively, when received from the primary sources, they must be cited.
10. As mentioned in the ‘Abstract’ section dependence (‘feed > cutting speed > depth of cut’, line 303) is cited so, respectively, should not be presented in the current form in this (Abstract) section.
11. The ‘Conclusion’ section must be improved so that, there is no one, general issue. I also suggest dividing this section into separate, numbered gaps. That would help highlight the motivation for the novelty proposed.
12. Too many abbreviations or shortcuts make the paper difficult to follow for a reader. Any shortcuts must be added in a special section, ‘Abbreviations’, near the end of a manuscript, according to the Crystals journal guideline requirements. It might be crucial to make the article easier to follow, even for a regular reader.
Moreover, please find below some minor, editorial suggestions:
13. Double space in line 76.
14. The word ‘when’ in line 155 should not start with a capital letter.
15. The full DOI links (not only DOI numbers) should be included in the ‘References’ section.
16. The ‘et.al’ sentences should be removed and, correspondingly, all of the cited authors should be added, not only those first three.
From all of the above, the manuscript is interesting, the novelty was improved, and can be further considered, however, raised issues should be clarified that make the paper significantly improved and more suitable for publication in the Crystals journal.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
1. Remove all typo or grammatical Mistakes see lines (14, 60, 76, 135,
2. Line 27 to 28 remove discontinuity.
3. Line 57, Tool life in heat assisted turning usually increases.
4. Introduction is lacking motivation for the current work and needs improvement as most of the paper related to Ti alloys using heat assisted and hybrid machining techniques are not included in the current version.
5. The novelty of the work needs to explicitly define in introduction part.
6. Details of Force sensor, Thermal sensors (FLIR Camera) and Laser need to be included in 2.1.
7. Line 99 and 100 need a reference.
8. Why a heat level of 400C was used in LAM in the current study, why this level is selected.
9. The cutting condition is also not mentioned in the current version.
10. Is the emissivity of the thermal system calculated/measured before experimentation or not, no information is provided on the current version.
11. How the mesh size is selected for the current study to make sure that the cutting edge of the insert is not affected by it. Can the authors put details about the edge conditions in the paper and more details about the FE model for the readers.
12. The revolution of the images is very poor.
13. The significance of selected the studied three levels of turning need an explanation, of why it is selected.
14. What boundary condition was used for the workpiece heat dissipation to the environment in simulation?
15. Would be better to add a user subroutine to Deform to model laser heat absorption to the current model and would make it more attractive for the readers,
16. Need the time vs force history for one case of the simulation with Conventional machining and UAM and would be better to plot the experimental data on the same graph.
17. The details of the cutting insert position with respect to workpiece is missing in the current study.
18. The tool wear images for FE simulation are not enough, It would improve the work if all case studied cases in FE are presented with experimentally observed edges and presented in a more informative form for the reader.
19. The title of the paper does not match what is presented in the current work.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear author(s) of the manuscript ‘Experimental and simulation analysis of tool wear and surface roughness evolution in laser assisted machining of titanium alloy’, Manuscript ID: crystals-2086731’, thank you for your responses.
All of the comments mentioned in the first-round review process were improved significantly which makes the paper more suitable for consideration to be published in the Crystals journal.
I recommend the paper be published in the Crystals journal.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled " Simulation and experimental analysis of tool wear and surface roughness in laser assisted machining of titanium alloy " (crystals-2086731). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches.
Thanks very much for your kind work and consideration on the publication of our paper again. On behalf of my co-authors, we would like to express our great appreciation to you.
Best regards.
Yours sincerely.
Mr Dang
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Thanks a lot for incorporating the suggestions and compiling them in an excellent way for the reviewer.
However, The introduction section needs to discuss the effect of heat in Ti alloys and various heat-assisted and hybrid machining techniques used to turn Ti alloys. It would be better for the readers to explore all published literature in the modified version and make it more attractive.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled " Simulation and experimental analysis of tool wear and surface roughness in laser assisted machining of titanium alloy " (crystals-2086731). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches.
Thanks very much for your kind work and consideration on the publication of our paper again. On behalf of my co-authors, we would like to express our great appreciation to you.
Best regards.
Yours sincerely.
Mr Dang
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
