Effect of Different Heat Treatments on the Evolution of Novel Al-Si-Cu-Ni-Fe-Re Alloy Fabricated by Selective Laser Melting

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Several references in Introduction [1-6, 10,11] are not appropriate for supporting the statement made or are misnumbered.

Remove "Catherine Dolly" from line 48.

Specify dimensions of cubic specimens.  Also, move description of bend specimens to "Materials and Methods" and state units for dimensions. How were the surfaces of the bend specimens prepared? Crack initiation in 3-point bend testing of brittle material is affected by roughness of the tensile surface.

In discussion of bending performance, how many tests were performed? Strength values show too many digits; "766.12 ± 30.28" should be reported as "766 ± 30" and "811.11±28.86" should be "811±29". The strength increase may be real but is only borderline significant.  The figure shows one test only for each heat treatment and suggests significantly higher ductility for SPH. The mean and deviation of displacement values should be reported, also.

The as-built strength reported here is said to be higher than that in references 9, 28, 29 and 30.  The latter three studies used tensile tests, not bend tests. Specimen size and loading method should be the same or similar when comparing strengths of brittle materials.

Indicate the orientation of all of the microstructure images.  Parallel to build direction? Perpendicular?

Line 231: "more denser" --> "denser" or "more dense"

Figure 7. What are the images in the top and bottom rows? These are not described in the caption. (The center row is clearly a sketch.) Were the element compositions in the figure (and in the subsequent discussion) measured experimentally?  There is no mention of EDS in the Materials and Methods section and no presentation of element distribution maps. 

Much of the discussion in lines 297-339 is speculative

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Article „Effect of Different Heat Treatments on the Evolution of Novel Al-Si-Cu-Ni-Fe-Re Alloy Fabricated by Selective Laser Melting“ is scientifically as well as formally written on very good level. It contains sufficient amount of results that are properly discussed. Introduction is supported by sufficient number of references.

I recommend the article to publication after the following modifications:

- in Abstract, the phrase „white mesh“ should be replaced by other phrase, since white color is a consequence of SEM imaging mode. If different imaging mode is used, different color will possibly appear. Thus, it is not the characteristic feature of the mesh. In the results section, where the corresponding figure is described, the phrase is correct.

- Table 2 is given twice.

- please specify the chemical composition of the TJ-AS19-01 intermediate alloy.

- parameters of bending strength measurement should be included in Experimental procedure.

- in Fig. 1, please insert the stoichiometry of phases as a subscript.

- Discussed conclusions based on the XRD and SEM results of as-built, SPH and SQA samples should be enhanced (extended) with an analysis of chemical composition of phases (for example, obtained by means of energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy). It would help to assign the phases identified in XRD to SEM images.

- the text added to the microstructures in Fig. 6 is hardly visible and should be highlighted.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Please improve the paper with the following comments:

1.    Please avoid personal pronouns in the technical reports. The paper also needs an English proofreading.

2.    Please check the format for the in-text citations.

3.    The literature study of the paper should be expanded with a state-of-the-art discussion.

4.    Can the authors explain on what basis Table 2 are the optimal parameters?

5.    What standards were used for the mechanical tests?

 

6.    The text in the SEM images is not clear.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors have addressed concerns.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have sufficiently reflected all the comments and therefore I recommend the article for publication.

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have improved the paper, and it is now accepted. 

However, there are some in-text citation format problems. Also, the literature section needs to be expanded.