Creep Properties of Densified Wood in Bending
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a very strong paper. The scientific work is strong. The conclusions are supported by the results.
Author Response
Thanks for your suggestion.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors
A very good and interesting article. It is well-founded in terms of information on water-wood relationships, which are of interest for understanding the text. I have made a few remarks (in the manuscript text itself) to further improve your understanding. Please check and correct.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: Abstract- (1) It would be interesting to inform here, the type of resin used. (2) Normally, the climate chamber does not keep the temperature and relative humidity static. Normally a variation is reported (20 ± __ °C), the same for RH (65 ± __%)
Response 1: Added (1) low-molecular weight phenol-formaldehyde resin (2) 20 ± 2℃ and 65 ± 5% relative humidity
Point 2: Introduction (1) Paragraph too long (22 lines). Long paragraphs tire and distract the reader. It is suggested to split it in two. A good paragraph shouldn't be much longer than 10 lines. (2) Complete the information of why creep may involve a potential safety risk. (3) The objective declared here must be compatible with the constant in the Abstract. Do not insert in objectives, methodological part.
Response 2: (1) Adjusted the length of the paragraphs. (2) Added “Timber used in construction, whether it is in its natural state, used in engineered wood products or modified in some way, will be exposed to long-term loading, and will thereby exhibit creep deformation and, in extreme, early failure of the structure or at least give a negative impact on the serviceability during service life.” (3) Made the objective in introduction fit the constant in abstract. (4) Corrected reference formate.
Point 3: Material and methods (1) From the image, this group of samples is thicker (almost twice) than the others. That's right? If not, I suggest including another image...... And if it is correct, the methodology is flawed. Because you can't compare materials with different dimensions, not even orientation. (2) I don't think it's necessary to separate these into items. Just start each paragraph with the treatment to be given to each group of beams. Arrange, in order to facilitate understanding, the figures as close as possible to their calls in the text. (3) Avoid using items and sub-items with only one paragraph. Merge two or more of them into one. This prevents the text from being too broken, and gives greater "fluidity" to the reading. (4) Density is mass over volume..... So it should be informed that it was obtained by the quotient of mass by volume..... If you just measure and weigh, you will get two pieces of information, which is not the density. Do you agree??? (5) For the application of ANOVA, the normality of the data distribution and the homogeneity of variances must be observed. These assumptions were observed. Did the data pay attention to them? What tests were used? Make this clear in the text.
Response 3: (1) I may mislead the readers here. The samples in all groups are with same dimension. The thicker sample in image is the sample before densification. I replaced with a new image now. (2) Deleted the separation and adjsuted the figure position. (3) Meraged density and set-recvoery paragraph (4) Added equation for density. (5) The normality and homogeneity of the data’s variance were verified by the Shapiro-Wilk and the Levene’s tests, respectively. The results were satisfactory for the application of parametric tests. Therefore, a comparison between the results was performed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Scheff’s post-test at a significance level of 5%.
Point 4: Result and discussion (1) Paragraph too long (26 lines). See previous comments on this. Check and correct the other cases in the text. Split into three others. Arrange tables and figures as close as possible to their call in the text. (2) Table and Figures must be self-explanatory, without the need to resort to the text to understand them. Thus, cite in the footer of the table, the meaning of all abbreviations contained in it.
Response 4: (1) Adjusted the length of the paragraphs. (2) Added the meaning of all abbreviations in table and figures.
Point 5: Discussion (1) Please look at the study objectives and draw a conclusion for each one, based on the results. It is advisable to divide the conclusions into paragraphs, according to the objectives and results obtained. (2) Which of these two processes(resin impregnation and thermal modification) do you think is the best? It's because? Aiming at the structural purpose. (3) The conclusions are yours, based on your objectives and results achieved. Thus, do not make bibliographic citations in the conclusions. Do not insert methodological parts in the same and do not confuse conclusions with summary of results. In the conclusions, be very punctual (objective).
Response 5: (1) Adjusted the length of the paragraphs and modifed the conclusion based on the objective. (2) In this study,when combining with THM densification, the resin impregantion showed better mehcanical properties and poor dimension stability compare with post thermal modification. Therefore, depending on different target purpose in cononstructon, either of them can be chosen. The relative poor dimension stabitliy of resin impregated wood may due to the permeability of Scots pine. (3) Deleted the citation and methdological parts.
Point 6: Reference (1) Check that all references listed are in accordance with the numbering presented within the text and vice versa. Also check the norms of the journal Forests, for the correct form of citation of the references.
Response 6: (1) Checked and corrected all the listed reference
Reviewer 3 Report
„Creep Properties of Densified Wood in Bending” describes the results of the research on the effect of thermal modification and resin impregnation on the creep of densified wood in bending. The topic is interesting and important from both scientific and practical perspectives. The experiments were well planned and performed, and the results were presented and discussed thoroughly. I have only a few minor comments and suggestions – they can be found in the .pdf file attached. I recommend the paper for publication after minor revision.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Point 1: “The MOR improved by about 64% after the densification, and the resin impregnation RI-D increased even more due to the by impregnation increased density and permanent swelling of the cell wall”. This sentence needs a linguistic correction
Response 1: Modified the sentence to “ The densification leads to an improvement by about 64% on the MOR. When combining resin-impregnation with densification, RI-D showed further increases on the MOR due to the impregnation induced higher density and permanent swelling of the cell wall”.
Point 2: This part of the manuscript seems a bit chaotic, because the authors switch back and forth between the effect of thermal modification and resin imprgnation. I would suggest to organise it by describing the effects of one treatment with explanation first, and then of the next one.
Response 2: Splitted and adjusted the description order of this paragraph.
Point 3: I suggest to add the explanation of samples' ID so the table can be understandable without the need of reading the whole manuscript. The same relates to other tables iand figures n the article.
Response 3: Added the meaning of all abbreviations in table and figures.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
