Dear Dr. zhang,

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.

Kind regards,

SATHISH SIVASUBARAMANIYAN

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed.

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“The authors gratefully acknowledge the National Natural Science Foundation of China.”

We note that you have provided funding information that is not 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 National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant grant number (51975257).”

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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?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: No

**********

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

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: 1. Literature review is not up to date.

2. Need for the present study is not clearly spelt out.

3. Governing equations invoked is not specified

4. Grid independence study not available

5. Turbulence models study not done

6. Detail discussion on the findings between the improvement observed in the current and modified models not clearly specified

7. Conclusion to be rewritten with focus on the current findings

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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

**********

[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.

Dear Dr. zhang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After consideration of the reviewer reports and my own assessment, I find that the study shows potential but does not yet meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria in its current form. I am therefore inviting you to submit a revised version of the manuscript.

The reviewers’ comments are provided below. While Reviewer #3 considers that many issues raised previously have been addressed, both reviewers identify remaining concerns related to manuscript structure, clarity of presentation, and completeness of reporting that must be resolved before the manuscript can be considered further.

Please note the following points, which should be addressed in your revision:

• The manuscript requires substantial revision for standard academic English , including grammar and sentence structure. As PLOS ONE does not provide copyediting the revised manuscript must be clear and publication-ready.
• The overall structure of the manuscript should be revised, including consolidation of multiple “results and discussion” and “conclusion” sections into single, appropriately organized sections.
• All equations taken or adapted from previous literature (including Equations 1–5) must be properly cited, and this should be ensured consistently throughout the manuscript.
• The logical relationship between CFD simulation, bench testing, and response surface methodology should be clearly explained and justified.
• The presentation of verification results should be clarified, and overlapping sections should be merged where appropriate.
• The conclusion section should be revised to be more concise and to emphasize quantitative findings.
• Table 3 should be reformatted to comply with PLOS ONE table guidelines.
• The literature review should be strengthened , including the incorporation of more recent relevant studies.

When revising your manuscript, please provide a detailed, point-by-point response to each reviewer comment, indicating how the issues have been addressed or explaining your reasons if you have chosen not to follow a specific suggestion.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 01 2026 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.

• A 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,

Soheil Mohtaram

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

**********

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

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: N/A

**********

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

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

Reviewer #2: Below are my comments regarding the manuscript:

- The manuscript does not adhere to standard English structures. A thorough revision is necessary to edit the structures.

- The article is lengthy, and this volume is somewhat too extensive for publication in the journal. Please condense the content to make it more concise and effective.

- Please provide the references for each of the equations (1 to 5) that you have taken from other sources. Additionally, please ensure this for all other equations as well.

- Why have terms such as "results and discussion" and "conclusion" been used multiple times in different sections, like 3.3, 5, 9, and 10? This format is not suitable for publication in a reputable journal like PLOS ONE. Every article should have a single conclusion, so please review and revise the entire paper from the beginning.

- The format of Table 3 is not suitable for publishing in this journal.

- After the overall edits, you can resubmit it for review.

Reviewer #3: The author has basically solved the existing problems according to the reviewer's comments, but there are still some obvious shortcomings in the manuscript.

1. The structure of the introduction needs to be modified, there is no need to divide it into so many paragraphs. In addition, the content in the last paragraph, from line 102 to line 106, starting with "in conclusion", is unnecessary and not suitable for writing in the introduction.

2. I agree with the previous reviewer's opinion that the literature review is still very insufficient. Currently, the cited literature is too old, mostly published before 2015. Please review the literature published in the past five years and add it to the manuscript. Otherwise, the current literature review cannot reflect the necessity and innovation of your research.

3. Section 4.2, where is the results of the verification ? Is it included in Section 6? If so, the two should be merged.

4. Please the authors to explain the logical relationship between CFD simulation, bench testing, and response surface methodology analysis ? Why is it necessary to use all three methods simultaneously in one research ?

5. The conclusion is still too long and lacks quantitative results.

**********

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

**********

[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.]

To ensure your figures meet our technical requirements, please review our figure guidelines: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures

You may also use PLOS’s free figure tool, NAAS, to help you prepare publication quality figures: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-tools-for-figure-preparation.

NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications.

Manuscript Number: PONE-D-25-43359R2

Title: Numerical Simulation of a Hot-Air Cleaning Fan for the Combine Harvester

Dear Dr. Zhang,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript entitled “Numerical Simulation of a Hot-Air Cleaning Fan for the Combine Harvester” has been accepted for publication in PLOS ONE , pending final processing checks by the journal office.

The manuscript will now proceed to the production stage, where it will undergo technical checks and preparation for publication. You may be contacted by the production team if any additional information or clarification is required.

Thank you for choosing PLOS ONE for the dissemination of your research. We appreciate your contribution and look forward to seeing your work published.

Congratulations on your acceptance.

Sincerely,

Soheil Mohtaram

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE