Study on the mechanical properties of unloaded damage sandstone under dry-wet and freeze-thaw cycling conditions

Wenrui Wang; Xingzhou Chen; Lili Chen; Sheng Gong; Zhenkun Su

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0310012

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJanuary 14, 2024
17 Jul 2024 Decision Letter - Hui Yao, Editor PONE-D-24-01541Study on the mechanical properties of unloaded damage sandstone under dry-wet and freeze-thaw cycling conditionsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chen, 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 Aug 31 2024 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, Hui Yao Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please note that PLOS ONE has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, all author-generated code must be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse. 3. In your Methods section, please provide additional information regarding the permits you obtained for the work. Please ensure you have included the full name of the authority that approved the field site access and, if no permits were required, a brief statement explaining why. 4. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: “This research was funded by THE NATIONAL NATURAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION OF CHINA, grant number U1965107. These supports are gratefully acknowledged.” We note that you have provided funding information that is currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: “This research was funded by THE NATIONAL NATURAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION OF CHINA, grant number U1965107.The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 5. We note that your Data Availability Statement is currently as follows: [All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.] Please confirm at this time whether or not your submission contains all raw data required to replicate the results of your study. Authors must share the “minimal data set” for their submission. PLOS defines the minimal data set to consist of the data required to replicate all study findings reported in the article, as well as related metadata and methods (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-minimal-data-set-definition). For example, authors should submit the following data: - The values behind the means, standard deviations and other measures reported; - The values used to build graphs; - The points extracted from images for analysis. Authors do not need to submit their entire data set if only a portion of the data was used in the reported study. If your submission does not contain these data, please either upload them as Supporting Information files or deposit them to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. For a list of recommended repositories, please see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/recommended-repositories. If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially sensitive information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. If data are owned by a third party, please indicate how others may request data access. 6. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ 7. 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. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: 1. it is better to add some more references. 2. The amount of unloading is used to quantify the extent of unloading damage. The formula representing the amount of unloading should be presented. 3. Mechanical performance testing conducted after cycling test should be outlined. 4. Has pore characterization of rock samples before and after cycling test been assessed? 5. The research objectives should be clearly stated at the end of the literature review section. Reviewer #2: 1. The table format needs to be standardized, as the border styles of Table1 and Table2 and 3 are not consistent. 2. In Figs. 11 and 12, the specimens only show cracks, and the failure degree of the specimens under different cycle times is not obvious in the graphs, try to improve the images to increase the recognition, such as adding colors to the peeling areas. 3. In Fig. 19, the failure characteristics are derived by numerical simulation, is it possible to establish a connection between the 3D or 2D model image and the experimental part of the previous paper, in order to better illustrate that the results of numerical simulation are consistent with the experimental results. 4. In this paper, the effects of dry-wet, freeze-thaw cycles on unloaded damaged sandstone were considered, and three dry-wet and one freeze-thaw cycle were selected in the cycling test methods. However, in the subsequent experimental tests, it was tested on specimens that completed a set of cycling steps. In the further study, it's better to carry out the experimental steps of dry-wet and freeze-thaw cycles separately, and analyze the specimens under three different cycling states of dry-wet, freeze-thaw, and both dry-wet and freeze-thaw, in order to better derive the effects of different and combined effects of dry-wet and freeze-thaw on unloaded damaged sandstone, so as to better analyze the mechanical properties of unloaded damaged sandstone under different seasons. 5. Some of the English writing grammar needs to be improved. ****** 6. 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 ******** [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310012.r001
Revision 1
7 Aug 2024 Author Response Dear Editor and Reviewers: On behalf of the co-authors, we are very grateful to you for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript. Thank you for your decisions and constructive comments on my manuscript entitled “Study on the mechanical properties of unloaded damaged sandstone under dry-wet and freeze-thaw cycling conditions” (manuscript ID: PONE-D-24-01541) for your decisions and constructive comments on my manuscript. We agree with the suggestions of both reviewers and have incorporated the suggested changes into the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing: Reviewer#1: 1.Comment: It is better to add some more references. Response: We sincerely thank you for your valuable comments. We have carefully reviewed the literature and have added references on slope unloading damage and environmental factors affecting slope stability in the introductory section of the revised manuscript. Meanwhile, in the section of Construction of the Damage Model, relevant literature on damage modelling has been added. (A total of 8 relevant papers have been added: see papers 2-6, 23, 24, 27 and 28, which are located at lines 37-40 on page 2, line 71 on page 4 and line 306 on page 18, respectively.) 2.Comment: The amount of unloading is used to quantify the extent of unloading damage. The formula representing the amount of unloading should be presented. Response: Your input is essential to help us better understand and interpret the definition of "unloading capacity". Therefore, we have added the formula for defining unloading capacity and the physical definitions of the items in the formula. Unloading capacity is the percentage of the ratio between the original perimeter pressure minus the existing perimeter pressure and the original perimeter pressure minus the unloading damage perimeter pressure. The unloading quantity is defined as follows: U_s=(σ_3^0-σ_3^i)/(σ_3^0-σ_3^f )×100% (1) In the definition of unloading, U_s denotes the amount of unloading, σ_3^0 represents the initial perimeter pressure value before unloading, σ_3^i the target perimeter pressure value for unloading, and σ_3^f the perimeter pressure value at the time of unloading damage. (Equation 1 above has been added to the manuscript content and can be found on page 5, lines 105 to 108.) 3.Comment: Mechanical performance testing conducted after cycling test should be outlined. Response: Thank you for your careful review, the omission of the experimental method on cycling followed by reloading of the mechanical test undermines the integrity of the experimental method section. We have therefore added a text description of the reloading test after the description of the cyclic test setup. The purpose of the reloading tests is to obtain the mechanical properties of the post-cycling unloaded damaged specimens, and they are the same as the conventional single triaxial procedure for rock, with the noteworthy exception that before the triaxial loading we have to return the specimen's environment to the pressurised environment of the unloaded damaged specimens. (The addition of the textual description of the reloading test can be found on page 7 of the manuscript along with lines 144 to 154 on page 8, which is at the bottom of Figure 3.) 4.Comment: Has pore characterization of rock samples before and after cycling test been assessed? Response: As you say, we also believe that evaluating the pore characteristics of unloaded damaged specimens before and after cyclic action helps us to understand the nature of cyclic action. In order to ensure that the conclusions from the tests we designed were reliable, we measured the porosity of the specimens during the cycling tests. The method of measurement was as follows, in order to avoid the influence of saturation and drying during porosity determination on our original test plan, we measured the volume and mass of the specimens after each drying/saturation during the wet/dry cycling process, and we obtained the porosity of the specimens during the cycling process by calculation. We found that the porosity increased during the cycling process, which indicates that the structure of the unloaded damaged specimens is becoming looser and looser, and that there is a link between this and the mechanical properties of the specimens. However, I did not describe this part of our work in the manuscript for two main reasons. The first is that we were unable to accurately characterise the porosity of the specimens after freeze-thaw cycling. According to the methodology for porosity determination, the measurement of porosity after freeze-thaw causes the specimens to undergo an unintended drying and saturation, and we were concerned that this would affect our ability to quantitatively characterise the cycling-mechanical property relationship. Therefore, I think we may need to incorporate some non-destructive testing methods to study it in further research, such as the common longitudinal wave velocity and electron microscope scanning methods. The second point is that, considering that the porosity we determined can only reflect the trend of change but is not precise enough, we did not include this item in our article during the process of building the damage model and compiling the manuscript. 5.Comment: The research objectives should be clearly stated at the end of the literature review section. Response: We agree with you, and therefore we have modified the last paragraph of the introductory section of the manuscript. Our two research objectives, to investigate the variation of mechanical properties of unloaded damage specimens under dry-wet-freeze-thaw cycling and to develop a damage model that can be used to reflect this change in mechanical properties, have been described in a more direct manner. (A description of the revised additions can be found after line 74 on page 4 of the manuscript.) Reviewer#2: 1.Comment: The table format needs to be standardized, as the border styles of Table1 and Table2 and 3 are not consistent. Response: We were really sorry for our careless mistakes. Thank you for pointing this out. We have standardised the format of the three tables. (The revised tables are at paragraphs 11, 14 and 22 respectively.) 2.Comment: In Figs. 11 and 12, the specimens only show cracks, and the failure degree of the specimens under different cycle times is not obvious in the graphs, try to improve the images to increase the recognition, such as adding colors to the peeling areas. Response: Your suggestions are very useful and important, which help to make Figures 11 and 12 more clear and concise, as well as to help us in interpreting the descriptions of the damage features. Thank you for your careful review. In Figure 11, we have used red stripes ( ) to mark the areas of flexural spalling damage in the sketch of the rupture features, and in Figure 12, we have used blue arrows ( ) to point out the location of the entry points of the diagonal damage. These modifications make it very clear that as the number of wet-dry-freeze-thaw cycles increases, the unloaded damage specimens show an increase in the area of flexural spalling damage and an increase in the number of crack incision points at the time of rupture. (The revised diagram can be found on page 17.) 3.Comment: In Fig. 19, the failure characteristics are derived by numerical simulation, is it possible to establish a connection between the 3D or 2D model image and the experimental part of the previous paper, in order to better illustrate that the results of numerical simulation are consistent with the experimental results. Response: This suggestion is very constructive, and indeed we are equally concerned about the link between numerical modelling and in-house testing. However, it should be noted that due to the limitations of the numerical simulation method (Finite Element Method), the results of numerical simulation and indoor experimental results can not be completely matched, but still can reflect a certain pattern of change. Although the numerical simulation can not simulate the collapse flexure spalling damage, but we found that the combination of the rupture surface of the specimen and the specimen surface as the specimen potential drop area, this part of the potential area with the increasing number of cyclic action and more broken, the area of the volume also increased. Therefore, we attempted to describe this phenomenon, but constructing a more explicit and quantifiable relationship still requires further research, which will be the goal of our further studies in the future. (The addition of a section on numerical and experimental linkages can be found on pages 27 and 28, line numbers 430 to 434.) 4.Comment: In this paper, the effects of dry-wet, freeze-thaw cycles on unloaded damaged sandstone were considered, and three dry-wet and one freeze-thaw cycle were selected in the cycling test methods. However, in the subsequent experimental tests, it was tested on specimens that completed a set of cycling steps. In the further study, it's better to carry out the experimental steps of dry-wet and freeze-thaw cycles separately, and analyze the specimens under three different cycling states of dry-wet, freeze-thaw, and both dry-wet and freeze-thaw, in order to better derive the effects of different and combined effects of dry-wet and freeze-thaw on unloaded damaged sandstone, so as to better analyze the mechanical properties of unloaded damaged sandstone under different seasons. Response: Thank you very much for guiding us in the direction of future research. Separating the dry and wet factors, the freeze-thaw factor and then quantitatively describing them, and secondly trying different combinations on the effect of unloading damage specimens will be our further research direction. 5.Comment: Some of the English writing grammar needs to be improved. Response: We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes to the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in the revised paper. We appreciate for Reviewers’warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval. We sincerely appreciate the time and effort invested by the reviewers in evaluating our manuscript. We look forward to any additional feedback or suggestions. Yours sincerely Wenrui Wang 5-Aug, 2024 Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310012.r002
23 Aug 2024 Decision Letter - Hui Yao, Editor Study on the mechanical properties of unloaded damage sandstone under dry-wet and freeze-thaw cycling conditions PONE-D-24-01541R1 Dear Dr. Chen, 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. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. 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, Hui Yao Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310012.r003
Formally Accepted
1 Sep 2024 Acceptance Letter - Hui Yao, Editor PONE-D-24-01541R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chen, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Hui Yao Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310012.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .