Corrosion Behavior of a Cr-Al Coating Deposited on 304 Austenitic Stainless Steel by Multi-Arc Ion Plating in Liquid Lead–Bismuth Eutectic
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper could be considered for the journal after the following mandatory revisions:
1-The first sentence of the abstract should be deleted.
2-in the abstract, the authors should mention what parameters were investigated in this research. Also, the tests used and the general results should be briefly mentioned in this section.
3-Some old references were used in the introduction of the paper which is not acceptable. On the other hand, the correlation between the corrosion of coatings on the properties were not discussed and analyzed. The current introduction is incomplete and the following documents can be used to strengthen it:
- Failure of AISI 304H stainless steel elbows in a heat exchanger, Engineering Failure Analysis 90, 397-403, 2018.
- Optimization of spot welding process parameters in dissimilar joint of dual phase steel DP600 and AISI 304 stainless steel to achieve the highest level of shear-tensile strength, Materials Science and Engineering: A 726, 120-125, 2018.
- Effects of ERNiCr-3 butter layer on the microstructure and mechanical properties of API 5L X65/AISI304 dissimilar joint, Journal of Manufacturing Processes 50, 305-318, 2020.
4-standard deviation for figure 8 is needed. The repeatability of the hardness test needs to be mentioned.
5- How are sure of the presence of O in your method?
6-The scales of the microstructural image of figure 10 is not clear.
7-Conclusion #3 could be divided in two.
8-Explain the novelty of the work better in the last paragraph of the paper.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The article shows that as a result of applying a Cr-Al coating on the surface of stainless steel 304 by multilayer deposition, the features of Cr-Al coatings, their phase composition during vacuum deposition to a temperature of 600 0C and holding for 1000 hours are revealed. Conducted research on corrosion and oxidation of the material. Changes in hardness according to HM are revealed. The corrosion resistance on the surface is due to the formation of the Al2O3 phase. Question to the authors were there other phases and their role?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The relevance of the work lies in the need to develop new energy sources. Modern fast neutron reactors have a huge potential in this matter. At the same time, it is known that for their effective use it is necessary to develop new materials and methods for their protection from the operating conditions of the reactor. The authors develop protective coatings, which determines the relevance of the presented work.
- The introduction describes the problem the authors are working on. A review of the current state of research in the field of coating formation and the study of their properties as applied to the nuclear industry is given. The review uses fairly modern literature.
- The second section describes the coating and testing procedure. A technique for studying the structure and hardness of coatings is also given.
Materials and methods are adequately chosen and provide good quality experimental results.
- The third section presents the results and their discussion. In general, the results are well presented. The description of the illustrations is quite detailed. When discussing the new data obtained, the authors refer to well-known literary sources. The discussion, although brief, gives a good idea of ​​the reasons for the improvement in the corrosion resistance of 304 steel through the use of the selected Cr-Al coating.
- The fourth section draws conclusions based on the results obtained. The conclusions are well formulated.
Remarks.
- The first section should contain the specific purpose of the submitted work, and not just an abstract description of the work performed (lines 80-84).
- Figure 11. Signatures need to be enlarged. In the current form, the inscriptions on the figures are poorly distinguishable.
- Figure 11. The description of fragments of graphs a-f is missing in the caption.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Required revisions are applied. The paper can now be accepted in its current format.
