A Review of Road Design for Wind Farms in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Respected Author
Presented study is not really a review. It is a nice article presenting various issues related to transport roads for wind turbine blades. Both: geometry of road and issues related to "water and soil loss" seem to be significant in planning of wind farms and I appreciate your effort to summarize the actual "state of the Art". I value practical outcomes that may be derived from the lecture of your study.
Concerning critical comments - I only have a bunch of editorial issues to be resolved. I observe that you refer to very local sources of information. I'd strongly suggest that your very "domestic" list of cited sources should be somehow supplemented with international references. You may check doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012130 and make your own search in Scopus, Web of Science and MDPI search engine. I'd also suggest to mark clearly the references that are available in Chinese only (just for clarity).
Please revise and uniform (if possible) font sizes in the Figures. It will help the Readers.
You use proper format of reference list but there are some spelling mistakes (line 746 "GPS date").
Sincerely
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
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Reviewer 3 Report
Interesting research paper, well organized and very good contribution.
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Reviewer 4 Report
With growing energy problems of the world, wind farms are gaining more and more importance. Therefore, the topic of the paper is actual and relevant.
The paper is allocated to the review category. Its reference list contains 62 items, which would be a good number for a literature review. However, only two of the 62 items come from other than Chinese authors, while the problem of wind farm access is an international one. Furthermore, except very few items, most of the papers cited cannot be found on the internet.
Chapter 2. Research on Line selection optimization. This chapter uses expressions like GPS, LiDAR, BIM, UAV, GIS, 3D etc. which are common in road design throughout the world. It would be interesting to know the differences of the use of these tools between normal and difficult terrain conditions.
Chapter 3. Research on Circular curve design. This chapter refers from line 166 calculation models of the “Code for Design of Roads in Wind Farm Engineering" [22] in a length of seven pages with a number of equations and detailed figures. In my view, a literature review should comprise the essence of documents and not copy several pages of them.
Further in this chapter, a subsection on “Widening calculation model based on kinematics theory” can be found which is the result of the research group of the authors. This section also too detailed and strange in a review paper.
Chapter 4. Research on Profile design. It would be interesting to see the difference between recommended values under these special conditions and that of the “normal” rod design guidelines.
Chapter 5. Research on water and soil loss. No remark.
General remark: For tables and figures the sources should be clearly identified.
Author Response
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Reviewer 5 Report
This paper focused on providing a reference basis for wind power road designers, regarding this concern, this paper accomplished the objective proposed by the authors. However, some minor considerations will improve the quality of the paper.
*Please, review and improve the quality of the figures that represent flowcharts, in some cases, the low size of the font, as well as the bad quality of the font impossibility of the reading the information. Fig. 21 is particularly difficult to read.
*Please, in the section of the discussion, write only a discussion of the paper and make a separate section for the conclusions.
*Please improve the quality and font size of Fig. 24.
Author Response
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Reviewer 6 Report
The submited manuscript with ID: applsci-2220630 and title: “A Review of road design for wind farms in China”. The manuscript is very interesting given the increasing use of this type of energy on a global scale..
The analysis presents a review of the situation of roads leading to wind farms, with emphasis on several important issues such as line selection optimization, Circular curve design, the Profile design and the water and soil loss in such construction.
The review is comprehensive and well-developed, but in order to make it easier for readers to understand, the following improvements are proposed:
Manuscript style: English of the paper needs a revision. The quality of the written English detracts from the overall understanding of the paper.
Contents:
In order to facilitate the understanding of each of the methods reviewed, it is proposed to make some tables where, in a more graphic way, the pros and cons of these methods are collected.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Respected Author
In my first review I valued the educational aspect of your study. I only had a bunch of editorial comments, mainly concerning very "domestic" list of cited sources that should be somehow supplemented with international references. I also suggested to mark clearly the references that were available in Chinese only.
Now, the situation is even more complicated, because it appeared that almost all of your references are written in Chinese. That is not acceptable in quality journals, because the Readers have no chance to check (validate) their relevance and suitability to confirm presented opinions. You simply neglected my suggestion to widen the reference list with international sources and the references that you added (written in English) are authored mainly by Chinese authors.
I'd strongly recommend again that your very "domestic" list of cited sources should be supplemented with international references on transport of blades and wind turbine related earthworks. You may check: https://doi.org/10.3390/en10081112 (from Belgium) and https://doi.org/10.1201/9781315281896-41 (from Italy) and https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012130 (from Poland) and make your own search in Scopus, Web of Science and MDPI search engine. I'd also suggest to check if the references that are available in Chinese only were not published in English and refer to the English version (if possible).
Sincerely
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
applsci-2220630-Comments
The manuscript “A Review of a road design for wind farms in China.” is very interesting. The authors address all the concerns regarding this manuscript one by one.
There is no doubt that the authors have made an effort in improving their manuscript. The authors have adequately revised the manuscript upon my comments. This paper may be accepted for publication in the applied sciences.
Author Response
Thank you very much.
Reviewer 4 Report
My comments were adequately addressed.
Author Response
Thank you very much.
