Asphalt Layer Cracking Behavior and Thickness Control of Continuously Reinforced Concrete and Asphalt Concrete Composite Pavement
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this paper, the mechanical behavior, cracking characteristics and mechanism of CRC + AC composite pavement asphalt layer were revealed, and the control measures were put forward. The results have good practical significance, but the following suggestion could be further considered.
(1) In Table 1, the elastic modulus of AC in 20℃ was set to be only 870MPa. However, in the current Chinese standard of Specifications for Design of Highway Asphalt Pavement (JTG D50-2017), it was recommended that the modulus of AC in 20℃ should be more than 7000MPa. Please explain the difference.
(2) It was mentioned in Section 2.2 that “the temperature field was obtained by importing the air temperature data in Table 2 in ABAQUS, and the temperature field calculation logic was shown in Fig. 2”. Please give further details about the temperature calculation. What kind of heat transfer model did you applied? How did you set the thermophysical parameters and initial temperatures of the pavement layers?
(3) More background information should be added to explain the data in Table 2? The data in Table 2 are the surface or the inner temperature of the pavement, or the ambient temperature? How did you obtain the data? By on-site measuring?
(4) Please revise the unit of “0.3~0.6L·(m2)-1” in Table 5.
(5) In Section 2.3, “A set of surface deflection basin data tested on a highway with CRC+AC pavement structure in Hunan Province, China by Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) were used to verify the reliability of the thermal-mechanical coupling simulation method”. What was the specific structure of the pavement? Was it as same as the data in Table 1.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Dear Reviewers:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Asphalt Layer Cracking Behavior and Thickness Control of Continuous Reinforced Concrete Composite Asphalt Pavement”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as following:
Responds to the reviewer’s comments:
Point 1: In Table 1, the elastic modulus of AC in 20℃ was set to be only 870MPa. However, in the current Chinese standard of Specifications for Design of Highway Asphalt Pavement (JTG D50-2017), it was recommended that the modulus of AC in 20℃ should be more than 7000MPa. Please explain the difference.
Response 1: Many thanks for this comment. The modulus taken in the paper was much lower than the recommended value in the current Chinese standard of Specifications for Design of Highway Asphalt Pavement because the recommended modulus is the dynamic compression modulus at the load action frequency of 10Hz, while the load in this study only acted once. Considering the dynamic compression modulus at a frequency of 0.01Hz-0.1Hz is close to the compressive modulus of resilience, we chose the compressive modulus of resilience to conduct research. What’s more, in this paper we mainly focuses on the mechanical response of pavements under low temperature conditions, i.e, measured temperature in Table.2, so the moulus in 20℃ was almost no effect on the results. If it is necessary it can be remove.
Point 2: It was mentioned in Section 2.2 that “the temperature field was obtained by importing the air temperature data in Table 2 in ABAQUS, and the temperature field calculation logic was shown in Fig. 2”. Please give further details about the temperature calculation. What kind of heat transfer model did you applied? How did you set the thermophysical parameters and initial temperatures of the pavement layers?
Response 2: Many thanks for this comment. We have added some details related to the temperature field calculation. The reason for not elaborating was that this part is not the focus of the paper, and the relevant theories and methods are relatively mature, so elaboration would take up a lot of space.
Point 3: More background information should be added to explain the data in Table 2? The data in Table 2 are the surface or the inner temperature of the pavement, or the ambient temperature? How did you obtain the data? By on-site measuring?
Response 3: Many thanks for this comment. We have made an adjustment according to the Reviewer’s comments.
Point 4: Please revise the unit of “0.3~0.6L·(m2)-1” in Table 5.
Response 4: Thanks for recommendation. We have made a correction according to the Reviewer’s comments.
Point 5: In Section 2.3, “A set of surface deflection basin data tested on a highway with CRC+AC pavement structure in Hunan Province, China by Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) were used to verify the reliability of the thermal-mechanical coupling simulation method”. What was the specific structure of the pavement? Was it as same as the data in Table 1.
Response 5: Many thanks for this comment. The pavement structure was not same as the studied pavement structure in the paper. Since the pavement structure of the air temperature and deflection basin data source was more complex than the common CRC+AC composite pavement mechanism, the study did not use the pavement structural form of the data source but the more common one. Therefore, the validation here is only a validation of this thermodynamic coupling simulation method and extends to more common CRC+AC pavement structures to carry out the study. Considering that mentioning the pavement structure of the air temperature and deflection basin data source here would confuse the reader, this section was only a brief description.
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but also can been seen under track changes in revised paper. In addition, we also have carefully checked through the whole manuscript and corrected some grammar mistakes.
We appreciate for Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Yours sincerely,
Yu Sun
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript “Asphalt Layer Cracking Behavior and Thickness Control of Continuous Reinforced Concrete Composite Asphalt Pavement” suits Buildings journal scope, and the results are valuables for the pavement materials sector. It is a very interesting paper. The structure of the manuscript and description of the test process, are very interesting.
However, after reading the article, some main considerations were defined:
1. The number of samples on which the tests were performed was not given,
2. No statistical analysis of the research results, it should be provided,
3. References need in section 3 to support justifications and comparison of the test results with the previous researches. Otherwise, paper is similar to a simple report from what the authors observed in the laboratory and calculated. Please improve discussion using more relevant references,
4. Conclusions are very general.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Dear Reviewers:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Asphalt Layer Cracking Behavior and Thickness Control of Continuous Reinforced Concrete Composite Asphalt Pavement”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as following:
Responds to the reviewer’s comments:
Point 1: The number of samples on which the tests were performed was not given,
Response 1: Many thanks for this comment. This paper was a study of the mechanical response of CRC+AC composite pavement under thermal coupling by means of numerical simulation. In the ABAQUS software, the results calculated with the same parameters do not change, especially for the stress response under different working conditions in section 3.1 only the applied load needs to be changed on the established model. In section 3.2, the calculation was also performed once for each asphalt layer thickness. In summary, there was no need to set up multiple models (samples) for each simulation test since the results of the simulation test were unique for the same parameters.
Point 2: No statistical analysis of the research results, it should be provided,
Response 2: Many thanks for this comment. We couldn't agree more on this issue you mentioned. However, as in proposal 1, the research method here was a numerical simulation, and the calculated results under each fixed parameter were uniquely obtained, and the data obtained cannot be analyzed from a statistical point of view. We understand the limitations of this method and will use indoor experimental methods for more in-depth studies in the future, and the data will be carefully analyzed statistically.
Point 3: References need in section 3 to support justifications and comparison of the test results with the previous researches. Otherwise, paper is similar to a simple report from what the authors observed in the laboratory and calculated. Please improve discussion using more relevant references,
Response 3: Many thanks for this comment. We also agree this comment too. The reasonable thickness of CRC+AC composite pavement can be considered as the focus of this paper, so we cited 2 related references in section 3.3 that can support the resluts, you can check them in the last paragraph of section 3.3.
Point 4: Conclusions are very general.
Response 4: Thanks for this comment. For a problem such as pavement structure design, it may be difficult and costly to obtain accurate conclusions by conducting full-scale tests and building a sufficient number of test roads. Therefore, numerical simulation can only be used to study the problem, which was more suitable for finding patterns and difficult to reach precise conclusions. Although no precise conclusion can be given, the conclusions here can also provide a reference for more in-depth research and some guidance for engineering practice. We will draw as accurate a conclusion as possible in the following studies.
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but also can been seen under track changes in revised paper. In addition, we also have carefully checked through the whole manuscript and corrected some grammar mistakes.
We appreciate for Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Yours sincerely,
Yu Sun
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Please explain better why the parameter values were used:
- Damping ratio
- Elastic modulus for AC
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Dear Reviewers:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Asphalt Layer Cracking Behavior and Thickness Control of Continuous Reinforced Concrete Composite Asphalt Pavement”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as following:
Responds to the reviewer’s comments:
Point 1: Damping ratio
Response 1: Many thanks for this comment. There was an editing error in the damping ratio, and we have already fixed it.
Point 2: Elastic modulus for AC
Response 2: Many thanks for this comment. Another reviewe was also confused about the elastic modulus for AC. The modulus taken in the paper was much lower than the recommended value in the current Chinese standard of Specifications for Design of Highway Asphalt Pavement because the recommended modulus is the dynamic compression modulus at the load action frequency of 10Hz, while the load in this study only acted once. Considering the dynamic compression modulus at a frequency of 0.01Hz-0.1Hz is close to the compressive modulus of resilience, we chose the compressive modulus of resilience to conduct research.
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but also can been seen under track changes in revised paper. In addition, we also have carefully checked through the whole manuscript and corrected some grammar mistakes.
We appreciate for Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Yours sincerely,
Yu Sun
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
