Dynamic Bath Mixing during an Ingot Casting Process
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript entitled: Dynamic Bath Mixing during an Ingot Casting Process is prepared on well based on state of art methods related to the steel flow studies. Moreover, it really brings new clearly presented method. The manuscript could have also very interesting application into the industrial practice.
To be fully acceptable for publishing, the bellow mentioned minor revisions are necessary to do.
See scanned copy with fixed mistakes for more details and needed revision, see it in attachment.
Comments:
For minor revision:
line 24: ADD keywords: steel, gas blowing
line 55: FIX it. It should be pH, isn’t? OR I don’t assume that it is any new method, if yes, please describe this abbreviation.
line 60: FIX it 95-101 %, e.g. our 10 years old works: Michalek, K.; Gryc, K.; Moravka, J. Physical Modelling of Bath Homogenisation in Argon Stirred Ladle. Metalurgija 2009, 48, 4, 215-218. AND Michalek, K.; Moravka, J.; Gryc, K. Mathematical Identification of Homogenisation Process in Argon Stirred Ladle. Metalurgija 2009, 48, 4, 219-222. IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO CITE MY WORKS. IT IS ONLY FOR YOUR INFORMATION. This number (95 % is not mentioned in above written works, but this was the real setting for homogenisation time).
line 76: FIX it. The Figure 1 should be not bold.
line 81 and next: Was there also temperature probes installed for temperature’s influence correction of conductivity signal? What was the water temperature, was water T=const. for all experiments and homogenised?
line 108, 140, Fig. 7, Fig. 9, Fig. 10, 185, 209, 211, 252, 254, 263: ADD space between the number and unit. It should be applied in all text.
Fig. 4: FIX it. The letter (b) for second photo.
Fig. 7: FIX it. The letter (d) for last photo.
Equation (1): ADD the 1 for dimensionless of mixing degree.
line 195: DELETE the dot.
line 200: FIX it. CHANGE dot FOR colon. NO BOLD for (a)… AND (b).
Figs. 12, 13, 14, 15: ADD the unit , 1 (dimensionless expression)
line 304-307: DELETE the instructions for authors.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Line 60: The description maybe make reader misundersand and it it is modified. In our physical model involving mixing research, we used the same value (95% or 100%±5%) as you mentioned. A new mixing time was defined in the cited reference since a mathematical model was applied and we want the result to be more precise and it is possible in the mathematical model. We defined the mixing time as “The mixing time is calculated based on the volume of 99%–101% homogenization of the scalar over the entire bath volume.” Actually it is not appropriate to describe like this. It should be “The mixing time is calculated based on 99% homogenized volume of the scalar over the entire bath volume.”
Line 81: There is a temperature correction for the probe. The water temperature was not recorded during the experiment but we kept the room temperature at 25±3℃ and the water tank used for the experiment was put in the room。
Rest of modifications have been done based on the comments. Especially the comment on the equation (1). Some information has been added in Line 179 and relative figures.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
The article you submitted is interesting and generally well-written. The topic is of huge importance both from the scientific and industrial point of view. However, I found some minor and medium weaknesses and I made some comments. Please consider them during the revision process.
Line 34 – „gas element” – I suggest to remove it because it is obvious.
Line 55 – please explain PH abbreviation
Line 60 – please explain the statement “as the volume of 99%-101%” because this 101% may be confusing for some readers not familiar with the topic
Line 63 – should be “literature” plural is a mistake in my opinion
Figure 6 – some text is cut thus not completely clear
Line 159 – the gas flowrate is given in Nm3but earlier (for example Table 1) it is described as m3. Please make it uniform.
The references are slightly obsolete, only one dated on 2017 and one 2016 are present
After you address all comments I am OK to publish the article.
Sincerely
Reviewer
Author Response
Thank you very much for the comments.
Some modification has been done base on the suggestions and they are shown in the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper focuses on a method to have information on mixing level in a bath with variable volume (ingot while filled). The approach is interesting and functional to achieve the information required. It can be questionable the choice of the point where to put the probe, which seems to be arbitrary, even though for checks on the same ingot the evaluation is not affected. So this is the only feature of the technique that cannot be 'generalised'. Maybe it can be indicated in the text.
The only concerns refers to the fact that some results are shown but it seems to be no effort to explain 'why'. For example, the effect of the bath height on enhancing mixing (the bubble plume spreads better and transfers kintetic energy to the bath), or why the annular injection is efficient (there is relatively poor overlapping between gas and metal streams, and especially between gas streams, which explains why two plugs symmetrically placed in a ladle are not recommended).
Comment to row 177: it is stated ' a lower mixing degree corresponds to a more intense bath stirring condition'. I think is more appropriate to put 'efficient' instead of 'intense': one can have better mixing with the same flow rate acting on the plug(s) position.
The section on 'Funding' at the end is incomplete.
Minor English spell/typing mismatches are shown below.
row 56: have been developed to improve the reliability of the measurement of mixing time.
row 62: 'dead zone'
row 91: In a previous study
row 92: ... were studied at different bath depths, stable when the tracer was added ...
row 94: and the teeming is stopped.
row 117: (Table 1 caption): parameters used in the experiments.
row 118: To investigate..
row 172: to simplify...
row 228: ... absolute symmetrical even if a...
Author Response
Thank you very much for the comments and suggestions. It is very useful to make the description more clear.
Some results have been explaned for relative parts.
Some modification has been done base on the suggestions and they are shown in the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
