Mathematical Analysis for the Evaluation of Settlement and Load-Bearing Capacity of a Soil Base Adjacent to an Excavation Pit
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The reviewed paper concerns with the analysis of a problem related to evaluation of settlement and load-bearing capacity of the weighty soil layer of limited thickness that is rested upon an incompressible foundation in the vicinity of a foundation pit wall. The authors developed a method for evaluation of the stressed state of a frequently found engineering problem. The constructed solution is based on the Ribere-Faylon trigonometric series along with accounting non-linearity of soils by a model by Timoshenko and Grigoryan. The constructed solutions enable assessment of the stress state of a soil and the associated load-bearing capacity.
It looks like that the reviewed paper may be recommended, as is.
Author Response
The authors team thanks for the submitted review of the work. Based on the comments on the need to improve the translation of the article, adjustments were made. The revised article has been uploaded for review.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is well written and covers an important topic. The scientific soundness of the presented research is high. I recommend it for publication after minor modification, in compliance with the following comments:
1. Page 5, Section 3: The authors should explain how they have chosen the values for q, d1, b (a), and d2. Were these values selected randomly or are these values used as benchmark values for other similar studies?
2. Pages 7 and 8: The same question (how/why that exact value has been selected) goes for the thickness of the foundation, h, and for the values representing the mechanical properties of soils.
3. The fourth section "Discussion" is too short. The authors should either add more discussion regarding obtaining results presented in figures 5 to 10, or perhaps the entire section 4 can be moved to the beginning of the Section 5: conclusions.
4. Section 5: The first sentence should be removed.
5. Section 5: The authors mention that the total foundation settlement is 1.6 times higher at the distance of d2=2 m than of d1=6m. Do the authors think that perhaps other realistic model dimensions or soil properties would lead to significantly different results?
Author Response
The team of authors thanks for the feedback on the work. Based on the comments, the text of the article has been amended for each comment. The updated article has been uploaded for review.
