PONE-D-21-18667

Numerical Investigation of the Plastic Deformation Behaviour of Graded Crushed Stone

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Ni,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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'Founding: This work was supported by the Scientific Research of Central

Colleges of China for Chang'an University (No. 300102218212); the scientific

project from Shaanxi Provincial Communication No. 19-27K and the scientific

project from Shaanxi Provincial Communication No. 18-02K. The authors

gratefully acknowledge this financial support.'

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The article entitled “Numerical Investigation of the Plastic Deformation Behaviour of Graded Crushed Stone” aims to propose a numerical model of the dynamic triaxial test of graded crushed stone to study its dynamic characteristics.

The paper is well written and properly organized. The English is correct.

The authors introduce the paper correctly and explain the study. However, I also have some major and minor queries:

Major queries:

1. The abstract is not clear. It is complicated to understand what statements are results and conclusions of this research. Also, the method is not clear. It should be re-written to properly describe the problem, the method and the results/conclusions. Formulae should not be included.

2. In the introduction, the authors cite several papers but they do not describe the results or conclusions of these research works, which could be useful to define the objectives of this paper.

3. It is complicated to perform triaxial test on stone crushed samples. The suitability of the method is not very clear. A photo of the samples could help to understand and identify the soil considered. Moreover, the references, properly described, could support the method and objectives of this paper.

Minor queries:

4. The DEM significance is not described in the manuscript, only in the abstract.

My recommendation is major revision.

Reviewer #2: General comment

The manuscript focuses on dynamic characteristics of graded crushed stone. It is interesting to see a numerical study of dynamic triaxial test to study the accumulation rule and failure standard of permanent deformation. Good expression and rigorous data analysis have been made in this paper, while there are some detials need to be modefied. I have indicated those defects as specific comments. I hope the authors will spend some time to deal with those detials. With this and other concerns. I recommend to accept the paper for publication.

Specific comments:

1.The abstract should be rewritten to explain the importance and urgency of your research firstly, then summarize the evaluation result at the multiple temporal and spatial scale.

2.The authors indicated that Confining pressure was determined by ANSYS, so the finite element modeling and calculation need to be illustrated.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Numerical Investigation of the Plastic Deformation Behaviour of Graded Crushed Stone

PONE-D-21-18667R1

Dear Dr. Ni,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Ahmed Mancy Mosa, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors have addressed all the coments proposed. There are no furher comments. My recommendation is accept.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No