PONE-D-22-02796Research on the mechanism of multilayer spiral fog screen dust removal at the comprehensive excavation facePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Jing,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: In this paper, a multilayer spiral fog screen dust removal method is proposed for the first time. This dust removal method creates a multilayer fogging dust removal screen and increases the chance of contact between the fog droplets and the dust. It is innovative. The research discusses the movement law of wind flow under interaction, conducts a numerical simulation of multi-physical field coupling for the application of multilayer spiral fog screen device, and establishes a similar experimental platform to study and test the dust control performance of the multilayer spiral fog screen dust control method, and achieves good results, which has guiding significance for dust control at the comprehensive excavation face. This paper seems to solve a problem that is in production practice. I have a small suggestion though. The paper should discuss the relevant research in more detail to better understand the novelty of the paper and the contribution to the research institution. The paper is considered for acceptance, with minor revisions recommended.

Modification Comments：

1. Some figures are not clear, e.g. Figure 12

2、Adjust the size of the images appropriately and also try to keep the size of all the images in the manuscript as uniform as possible

3、The size of the formulae in this manuscript should be consistent

4. The font size of the title of this manuscript should be adjusted to the font size specified in this journal

5. Please briefly explain the significance of the simulation of the phenomenon of simultaneous injection of different numbers of nozzles in this manuscript for this research work

6. The experimental summary of this manuscript shows that the multi-layer spiral mist curtain device has better performance than the traditional spraying, and its advantages should be added to the specific description

Reviewer #2: This manuscript proposes a dust removal method using a multilayer spiral fog curtain with potential application in the dust-producing areas in mines. Considering the dangers of high-concentration dusts for miners, researches on this field are very essential. The manuscript includes experimental and theoretical sections. In the experimental section, an equipment has been made and dust removal rate and efficiency have been measured. In the theoretical section, numerical simulation of spray airflow and particle trajectory has been performed based on fluid mechanics relations. The manuscript is good in general. I recommend acceptance with minor comments as follows:

1. The manuscript file doesn’t have page numbers and line numbers. It is hard to refer to a particular word or sentence when you cannot refer to line numbers.

2. Has the device been tested in a real mine environment?

3. In the present manuscript, numerical simulations investigate the fluid mechanics of the system and experimental section studies the efficiency of dust removal (mass transfer). For future studies, I recommend the authors to couple mass transfer relations with the fluid mechanics equations and predict the dust removal efficiency by numerical simulations.

4. In the introduction, authors should explain more about the innovation of their work.

5. It is recommended to add a Nomenclature table to the manuscript.

6. The quality and sharpness of some figures are not very good (for example: Figs. 10, 5 and 6).

7. In section 3.2, some equations don’t have equation numbers.

8. In the text, reference number should be inserted after the “author’s name et al.”.

9. In the text, please use the same format to refer to the figures (“Figure” or “Fig. “).

10. Please use a space before the first bracket of all in-text citations.

11. The font of some parts of the manuscript is different from the rest of the text (such as references, some tables, the first paragraph of the conclusion, equation numbers and etc.). Please correct this problem in the manuscript.

12. Some parts of the text aren’t justified (for example: references, the first paragraph of the section 3).

13. After all the headline numbers, the punctuation symbol is required. Some headlines also start with a lowercase letter that need to be corrected.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewers comments.pdf

Research on the mechanism of multilayer spiral fog screen dust removal at the comprehensive excavation face

PONE-D-22-02796R1

Dear Dr. Jing,

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,

Mohammad Mehdi Rashidi

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

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: 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 my comments, therefore I suggest to accept the paper in the present form.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the modifications to the manuscript. I recommend acceptance but please correct the following comments in the final version of manuscript.

1. For in-text citations, it isn’t required to mention the author’s full name. Please just use the “author’s family name et al.”.

2. In the revised manuscript (page 16, line 420), please use the lowercase letters for the word of “Wind”.

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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

Reviewer #2: No