Individual and Combined Effects of Reinforcements on Fractured Surface of Artificially Aged Al6061 Hybrid Composites
, Sathyashankara Sharma, Gowrishankar M C *, Vishwanatha H M, Rakesh Ranjan and Srinivas Doddapaneni
Yuefeng Zhu
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The author needs to list the performance of similar research in the introduction, and compare it with the research methods in this study to reflect the progressiveness of this study. At the same time, the author should further summarize the innovation of this study. In addition, the language of the text needs to be further modified to make it easier to understand.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
Particle reinforcement for metallic materials has been supposed to be one of effective methods. The authors systematically investigated the effect of SiC and B4C particles filled into aluminum alloy by stir casting process. The work should be significant for engineering uses of the composites. The reviewer provides following revisions and suggestions as references to the editor and authors:
(1) All tensile tests should provide the specimen number and the results as shown in Fig. 5-7 should be combined with error bars. In addition, the titles of the horizontal axes of Fig. 5, 6 should be designated as SiC wt% and B4C wt%, respectively.
(2) Fig. 7 should be displayed rather in histogram than in curve graph because there exist not logically serial relation among the mentioned 1B5S, 2B4S, and 3B3S.
(3) Some typical surface characteristics shown in Fig. 9-11 should be marked out clearly such as the river pattern in Fig. 9.
(4) There are some statements are difficult to be understood such as follows: Line 171-173 “The alloy's grain size and strengthening reduction is possible because of the hard secondary phases on the soft matrix, which further improve mechanical properties.”; Line 302-303 “Figures 11 (b-c) show the presence of dendritic nodules inside a typical shrinkage cavity at increased magnification.” The reviewer suggests the author make check and revisions.
(5) There exist some clerical errors such as follows: Line 43, “B4C” should be “B4C”; Line 55-56 “during tensile strength” should be “during tensile test”; Line 115, “2, 4, and ” should be “2, 4, and 6”.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This work can be accepted.
Author Response
Thank you for accepting the manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
Most of the reviewers’ comments have been rationally responded. There are still some items to be discussed as follows:
(1) For all of the tensile tests, the sample size (i.e. how many specimens should be tested for one case) should be provided in additional to the statistical analysis results (error bars).
(2) The statement in Line 316-319 is still difficult to be understood. Fig. 11b and Fig. 11d presented characteristic of de-cohesive shear rupture of the composites as cast and dimple rupture of the heat treated composites, respectively, with higher magnification, yet Fig. 11c was the fractographs of the heat treated composites with lower magnification. The authors are suggested to make check and revisions.
Author Response
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Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
The comments have been rationally responded and the manuscript has been reasonably resrevised. Therefore, the reviewer suggests accept.
