PONE-D-22-13623Study on mechanical properties of reinforced concrete columns corroded in simulated seawater strengthened by shape memory alloy wiresPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Pei,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

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Cheng Fang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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"This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51878108, 52032011), Department of Science & Technology Guidance Plan Foundation of Liaoning Province (Grant Nos. 2019JH8/10100091), Scientific Research Project of Liaoning Provincial Department of Education (Grant Nos. LJKZ1177). The authors also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their careful evaluations and insightful comments that helped improve the paper."

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Reviewer #3 recommends Reject for the paper. The authors should carefully respond to the reviewers' comments, otherwise the editor would have no choice but reject the paper.

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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

Reviewer #3: No

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: I Don't Know

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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

Reviewer #3: No

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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

Reviewer #3: No

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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: This paper inverstigates mechanical properties of reinforced concrete columns corroded in simulated seawater strengthened by shape memory alloy wires. 14 specimens were made through the test, and the actual seawater corrosion was simulated by preparing a certain concentration of artificial seawater. FEM was also conducted. This paper can be published after a professional English editor.

Reviewer #2: The authors conducted experimental and numerical studies on the strength degradation properties of SMA-reinforced concrete columns corroded by seawater. But several issues should be addressed before acceptance and publication.

1) The title needs to be more concise such as Study on mechanical properties of SMA-reinforced corroded concrete columns.

2) The literature review of application of SMA wire/cable-based components (e.g., Eng. Struct., 183: 533-549, 2019; Earth. Eng. Struct. Dyn., 2021, https://doi.org/10.1002/eqe.3555.) should be referred.

3) The manuscript needs to be polished by native speakers of English.

4) The numerical simulation results together with the test results are both recommended to provide.

5) The axial force vs. axial deformation of the SMA-reinforced cylinder specimen, shown in Figure 8, should be provided.

Reviewer #3: This paper investigates the behaviours of the concrete columns corroded in seawater. Shape memory alloy wires were applied aiming to increase the strength and energy dissipation capacities. This paper is not well written since the key methodologies were designed groundlessly and were also unclearly presented. The authors are lacking fundamental understandings of the SMA and may use SMA just for creating innovations. Detailed comments are shown in below:

1) Introduction: It is a poor introduction to present why SMA can better improve the strength and the energy dissipation. It should firstly talk more about the material characteristics of the SMA and discuss how these characteristics can help to improve the capacities.

2) Introduction: There are different families in SMAs (Cu-Based, NiTi-based and Fe-based). Different SMAs have different properties and may behave totally different. However, this paper did not mention this.

3) Section 2.1: The naming methods of the specimens were missing.

4) Section 2.1: The grading of concrete is according to some Chinese standards but is lacking citations.

5) Section 2.2: There is no information about the SMA used in this study. Transformation temperatures (usually from DSC), dimensions, phase status, compositions and supplying source were not provided. So, the reliability of the paper is doubted.

6) Section 2.2: How the SMA wires strengthen the concrete column is ambiguous.

7) Section 2.3: Loading protocol is missing.

8) Methods: Poor illustration of the Methods makes me difficultly understand the results.

9) Section 3.1: There were no discussions to explain the failure modes. It looks like an experimental report rather than a scientific paper.

10) Results: It is doubted how the testing programme was designed. It is apparent that reinforced concrete columns should have better capacity than the unreinforced ones no matter which material is used for reinforcement. It should be a comparison between SMA-reinforced concrete column and traditional material-reinforced concrete column. Thus, I cannot find the significance in the results part.

11) Section 4: How was the SMA modelled? These was no material testing on SMA in this paper. How does these properties of the SMA come from? It makes the simulation results not solid.

12) Conclusions: No solid conclusions were drawn, and the experimental problem was not well-formulated.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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PONE-D-22-13623R1Study on mechanical properties of corroded concrete columns strengthened with SMA wiresPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Pei,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 04 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Cheng Fang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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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 #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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 #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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 #2: There are many typos in the current manuscript such as the unit kn in page 17 should be corrected as kN.

The last sentence of the revise manuscript is wrong and it should be rewritten.

The whole revised manuscript should be checked again carefully.

Reviewer #3: Authors have well revised the paper. Following comments should be considered before publication:

1) More discussions about the future research direction should be involved in the Conclusion or before the Conclusion.

2) A short introduction of different families of SMAs is needed in the Introduction. Following paper should be referred: Chang W-S & Araki Y. Use of shape-memory alloys in construction: a critical review. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Civil Engineering, 2016, 169(2), 87-95.

3) Innovative application of SMA to devices in modern structures is suggested to be reviewed: Huang H, Chang W-S. Re-tuning an off-tuned tuned mass damper by adjusting temperature of shape memory alloy: Exposed to wind action. Structures 2020, 25, 180-189.

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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 #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Study on mechanical properties of corroded concrete columns strengthened with SMA wires

PONE-D-22-13623R2

Dear Dr. Pei,

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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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Cheng Fang

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 #3: 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 #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #3: 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 #3: No

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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 #3: Yes

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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 #3: This manuscript has been well revised and now is well wiritten. I am satisfied with current manuscript.

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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 #3: No

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