Hydraulic Characterization of Ceramic Foam Filters Used in Aluminum Filtration
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Journal: Materials (ISSN 1996-1944)
Manuscript ID: materials- 2289048
Type: Article
Title: Morphological Characterization of Ceramic Foam Filters.
Authors: Massoud Hassanabadi * , Thomas Berto , Shahid Akhtar , Ragnhild E. Aune.
a) Introduction: Write the objective of the present work carefully.
b) The other didn’t measure the mechanical properties of foam which are useful for the samples for example hardness, surface roughness, compressive strength and thermal conductivity?
c) For references, choose recent refs. Please, refer to these refs. are very useful for the different measurement characterization
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1795/1/012059
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43207-022-00254-5
Best Regards
Author Response
Hello and thanks for your comments. I have taken into account you comments and I hope the answers to your comments will be satisfying.
[Comment] Introduction: Write the objective of the present work carefully. One sentence was added to the last paragraph of the intruduction section to make the objecive of the study more clear.
[Comment] The other didn’t measure the mechanical properties of foam which are useful for the samples for example hardness, surface roughness, compressive strength and thermal conductivity? Definitly that has been done by others, but the focus of this study was on the hydraulic property of CFF and we measured carefuly the morphological charactersitics (Cell, Window and Strut) that is needed for hydraulic studies, as well.
[Comments] For references, choose recent refs. Please, refer to these refs. are very useful for the different measurement characterization. unfortunately, i did not find the references relevent to what we have addressed in this work.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Title: Morphological characterization of ceramic foam filters
Manuscript ID: materials-2289048
Authors: Hassanabadi et al.
Dear Authors,
Thank you for the opportunity to read your article. I found the topic is interesting and fundamental. Generally speaking, there are some results presented in order to capture some trends but the results need more clear explanation and detail discussion with fair point of view. I suggest that this article will be revised throughout before its re-submission for another review process if applicable. As a conclusion, I recommend its major revision at this state.
I hope my comments are helpful.
Good luck,
A reviewer
Major concerns:
“Abstract”
-Please consider presenting some key numbers generated through this study. For example, you may provide a number supporting “a good correlation” on line 18.
“Keywords”
->Please consider providing keywords that are not used in the article title.
“1. Introduction”
-In the introduction, please consider clearly stating the research gap(s) you tried to address in this study.
“2. Theory”
-Figure 2: Are there any specific superficial velocities related to 3 different regimes? It seems that your arrows point out specific velocities. If yes, please consider defining the velocities in Figure 2 and its explanations on lines 97 to 105.
-Figure 4: Are there any differences between “dead-end pore” and “stagnant pocket”? If yes, please clearly define them and state their difference(s) in this section. From Figure 4, a reader cannot understand these points.
“3. Materials and Methods”
“3.1. Sample preparation”
-Figure 6: Please add a scale in your image.
“3.4. Pressure drop test”
-Lines 216-218: “…tap water at 283 + 3K.”->In this section, please consider mentioning the reason why you selected this specific temperature that seems relatively low in comparison with typical temperature for scientific studies (e.g., 20 or 25 C).
“4. Results and Discussion”
In general, the discussion of your results is very limited. Once you show a result in your article, please consider explaining and discussing it in detail.
“4.1. Porosity”
-Table 2: “S.D. (kg m-3)”-> S.G. (kg m-3)?
“4.3. Permeability”
-Figure 8(b): If I understand the figure title correctly, Figures 8(b) and 8(a) plot different physical values (i.e., enlargement of the mean permeability vs. mean permeability). Please consider renaming the y-axis title of Figure 8(b).
“4.4. Flow regimes in CFF”
-Figures 9-12: (a) Please consider combining them in order to facilitate their comparison since they have similar datasets and you have no detail discussion for each of them. (b) Are there any specific reason(s) for plotting the results with the filters from supplier A?
-Figures 14-17: (a) In this section, first please clearly stating the reason(s) why you compare those datasets. For example, do you wish to select a model equation better describing your experimental results and its applicable condition(s)? (b) Please consider plotting your calculations (i.e., “Equation 43”, “Kennedy”) with lines without dots, in comparison with your experimental data with dots without lines. (c) Please consider combining them in order to facilitate their comparison since they have similar datasets and you have no detail discussion for each of them. (d) “Equation 43”->Equation 13 ?
“6. Future work”
->Please consider combining this content with “5. Conclusions” since this section only have 1 sentence.
Minor concerns:
-Please consider polishing English more. You may use some of my comments above for this purpose.
Author Response
[commen] Please consider presenting some key numbers generated through this study. For example, you may provide a number supporting “a good correlation” on line 18. A range of numbers for each CFF is needed to plot the pressure drop vs. fluid velocity and a good correlation can be understood better in a graph than deviation of a point to point data. That has been shown in Figures 14-17. However. the average deviation from the experimental data was measured for CFF grade 80 shown in Figure 17 and the result (9%) has been mentioned in the abstract. that number would be different for different CFFs but in general the developed Ergun type equation in this work gives much better correlation with the experimental work when compred to an equation that has been developed in the similar set-up but at higher water velocity range that is not applicable for Aluminium filtration flow rates.
[commen] Please consider providing keywords that are not used in the article title: changes can be seen in the file.
[commen] -In the introduction, please consider clearly stating the research gap(s) you tried to address in this study: changes can be seen in the file.
Figure 2: Are there any specific superficial velocities related to 3 different regimes? It seems that your arrows point out specific velocities. If yes, please consider defining the velocities in Figure 2 and its explanations on lines 97 to 105: Figure 2 is only a schematic of how a graph of Fanning friction factor vs. Reynolds number or superficial velocity looks like. Depending on the filter type the onset of transition and terbulent flow can be changed as you can see in the Figures 9-12. However, as a general rule Darcy law is valid at velocities lower than 1 mm/s and that is why the arrow is showing numbers lower than unity and at velocities over 1 mm/s the Forchhiemer law is valid.
Figure 4: Are there any differences between “dead-end pore” and “stagnant pocket”? If yes, please clearly define them and state their difference(s) in this section. From Figure 4, a reader cannot understand these points: the dead-end was mistake and removed from the picture. changes can be seen in the file.
Figure 6: Please add a scale in your image. the changes in the file
-Lines 216-218: “…tap water at 283 + 3K.”->In this section, please consider mentioning the reason why you selected this specific temperature that seems relatively low in comparison with typical temperature for scientific studies (e.g., 20 or 25 C). the changes in the file
-Table 2: “S.D. (kg m-3)”-> S.G. (kg m-3)? it is Std.Dev. and chnages done in the table
-Figure 8(b): If I understand the figure title correctly, Figures 8(b) and 8(a) plot different physical values (i.e., enlargement of the mean permeability vs. mean permeability). Please consider renaming the y-axis title of Figure 8(b). Figure 8b was removed to prevent confusion
-Figures 9-12: (a) Please consider combining them in order to facilitate their comparison since they have similar datasets and you have no detail discussion for each of them. (b) Are there any specific reason(s) for plotting the results with the filters from supplier A? the figures are placed besides each other to be camparable and the reason for not showing the plot of other supliers and more discussion on the result added to the file.
Figures 14-17: (a) In this section, first please clearly stating the reason(s) why you compare those datasets. For example, do you wish to select a model equation better describing your experimental results and its applicable condition(s)? (b) Please consider plotting your calculations (i.e., “Equation 43”, “Kennedy”) with lines without dots, in comparison with your experimental data with dots without lines. (c) Please consider combining them in order to facilitate their comparison since they have similar datasets and you have no detail discussion for each of them. (d) “Equation 43”->Equation 13 ? The changes implemented in the file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Authors have investigated the physical and hydraulic characteristics of CFF, and analyzed the related performances. On the whole, the authors' statements are like test reports, not scientific research. It is equivalent to obtain materials from different suppliers, and testing and calculating with the help of formulas.
The title of the article is “morphological characterization”, however, the content does not involve too much morphological characterization. On the contrary, there are more spaces about permeability, fanning friction factor and pressure gradient, etc. As a result, readers do not understand the key points of the article.
In addition, the presentation of figures in the article is not standardized. For example, in Figure 1, why are there many letters in the upper left and right corners? A similar situation also appears in Figure 6. It is incomprehensible to understand why the oblique text annotation is used in Figure 6b. Figures 9-11 are listed separately. Why are they marked as a, b and c?
This article is not recommended for publication.
Author Response
Authors have investigated the physical and hydraulic characteristics of CFF, and analyzed the related performances. On the whole, the authors' statements are like test reports, not scientific research. It is equivalent to obtain materials from different suppliers, and testing and calculating with the help of formulas. Significant changes have been done in the file that I hope it is satisfying. We think it was necessary to study CFF from different supplier as what is called PPI or grade for CFFs could be completely different and researchers working on filtration efficiency of CFF specially Al production understand the efficiency would be different for a CFF of grade 30 and PPI 30. Regarding the application of formula to calculate a parameter we cannot see any problem as I can have a long list of publications have been using the similar design and method as we have used to measure permeability and pressure drops. We have used a significant number of samples and explained the method of the measurement in detail. The sample preparation is also important to prevent the bypassing of fluid through the experimental work. In many publications it is not very clear how they have prepared the sample to prevent the bypassing of fluid between the sample holder and sample. small amount of bypassing gives completely wrong number.
The title of the article is “morphological characterization”, however, the content does not involve too much morphological characterization. On the contrary, there are more spaces about permeability, fanning friction factor and pressure gradient, etc. As a result, readers do not understand the key points of the article. The title has been changed to reflect better the conetent of the article.
In addition, the presentation of figures in the article is not standardized. For example, in Figure 1, why are there many letters in the upper left and right corners? A similar situation also appears in Figure 6. It is incomprehensible to understand why the oblique text annotation is used in Figure 6b. Figures 9-11 are listed separately. Why are they marked as a, b and c? The figures are modified and it was tried to use similar method for numbering.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
As all the comments were addressed, I would suggest the journal accept this article for its publication.
Best regards,
A reviewer
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have revised the article carefully and improved the quality significantly. It is recommended to publish this article.
