Improved Design of Imaging System for Online Detection of Large-Sized Step-Shaft Runout Errors
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper, "Optimized Design of Online Detection Imaging for Large Sized Stepped Shafts Runout Error," suggests an improvement to a laser-based triangulation system for non-contact automated measurement of runout errors in turntables, which was initially proposed in 2008. The proposal entails adapting the original approach to enable measurement of larger diameters, specifically between 500 and 700 mm.
While the methodology is interesting, I believe that the manuscript could benefit from greater clarity on several points. Additionally, the authors may wish to emphasize more strongly the novelty and significance of their contributions to the existing body of knowledge in this area.
I recommend to consider the following five points.
1. Despite the extensive literature available on "Online Detection Imaging for Large-Sized Stepped Shafts Runout Error", there has been no comprehensive analysis of the existing research, and the references cited are limited in number and mostly outdated, dating back 20 to 25 years.
2. The authors must provide a benchmark for their proposed approach in order to validate the contribution and usefulness of their study. They should compare their research design, proposed approach, and experimental results with those obtained by other valuable scientific works.
3. The authors should present the background, methods, main findings, and conclusions of their study more clearly in the abstract and introduction, as the current form of the manuscript does not provide information on these aspects, and the delimitation of these aspects is unclear.
4. The "Conclusions" section of the manuscript appears to be insufficient. The authors should devise a proper "Conclusions" section that highlights the most important outcome of their work, focusing on what they have discovered and the implications of their findings.
5. The manuscript contains numerous typographical errors that warrant correction, and some of the figures are difficult to read due to text that is too small or written in Chinese. These issues suggest a lack of attention to detail that is unacceptable when submitting a paper to a journal.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsReview of manuscript entitled “Optimized Design of Online Detection Imaging for Large-Sized Stepped Shafts runout Error” by Y. Zhao et al.
Manuscript deals with an optical method to detect errors in the fabrication of shafts. The errors are called Runout Errors. The manuscript needs major changes. Some of them are mentioned next:
1 As far as possible keep the whole text comprehensible to scientists outside your particular field of research. Manuscript should be simple and give a good explanation of theory and experiments that other people could understand. Use common language.
2 In line 38 is mentioned the “stability” of the laser. The “stability” means it does not move, or “stability” in the intensity, polarization or wavelength. Define which stability you are talking.
3 The diagram shown in Fig. 1 is useless. First, use two lines representing the light that outgoes from the laser, not just one line. After the light leave a lens also use two lines to represent the light trajectory. One caption on the diagram says “ Collimating system” but it seems the lens form a point of light that is focused in the measured surface. Then this point of light is imaged on the photodetector. In that case the first lens does not “collimate” the light. It is very confusing the description of the Fig. 1.
3 What is a “quasi-rectification” optical system. Describe in the text with words what you understand for this definition.
4 Description of the behavior of the device in lines 85 through 97 is incomprehensible. It seems it has not been written by personnel working in optics.
5 On line 207 give a reference for the word “Scheimpflung”
6 In Fig. 6 the diagram is incomprehend. Redrawn the diagram put more captions to the optical elements, Use two lines for the light trajectory.
7 In Fig. 6 the lines do not have the “direction” that the light follows. Add the arrow heads.
8 Table 3 shows the results of the optical design program. There it can be seen that some quantities have three digits after the point. This means they represent the microns dimensions. In section 3 it is described the experimental section. Does the real optical elements presented the tolerances, or permissible limit or limits, that the optical design program gave?. Comment this in the manuscript text.
9 In table 5 are shown the PSD locations. There it is possible to see that the tolerances are in fractions of micrometers. For example the following numbers are shown “-2.7896 mm”. How did you achieved these tolerances in the experimental set up?.
10 It is said in line 282 that “The physical diagram of the experimental system is shown in Fig. 9”. That is not an experimental diagram, it is a photograph. However, it is better to mainly place a diagram. If BESIDES a GOOD photograph is shown it should have captions and arrows showing explicitly the elements.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article presents interesting aspects concerning the design of detection imaging for large sized stepped shafts runout error. The structuring of the article is quite good, details provided about the steps of research are quite well given and explained in the text. In the introduction section it is well motivated and explained what the system is bringing original contributions as compared to existing systems that have been tested by other researchers. I think that paper has good potential and can bring contribution to the Applied Sciences journal, but there are some few important aspects that I recommend to the authors to clarify them in the paper / correct them / add few more things before the article could be accepted for publication, such as:
1. It is written in the title of the article the term "Optimized design". Personally I would suggest that the term "optimized" should be replaced in the title (maybe with the term "Improved" - since optimizing of a design means by my understanding little bit more that bringing some changes in the designing of the system). Optimizing by my understanding should be related more to a mathematical model (with objective function described, constraints being added) and so on + some experiments little bit more consistent based on this optimizing of the design but with focus on the results of the experiments. While reading the article my personal feeling is that "Improved design" is more proper to be used instead of "Optimized design" for this article. Section 2.2 should also be little bit reconsidered - "Optimal design", "optimizing the lens", " design requirements after several optimizations", "hammer optimization" and things like this seems not at all very clear to me and create some confusions in understanding these terms in the context of the text. Maybe some more concrete detailed information have to be added here, but personally after I was reading this section, I still believe that "optimal", "optimizing', "optimizations" etc. should somehow be replaced or reconsidered.
2. At the end of section 2.2.3. it is mentioned "It can be seen from the above analysis results that the tolerance analysis results meet the design requirements.". Information provided in this section is too general and also the final conclusion. I think there are needed some extra explanations / more concrete details (data) to be provided here, to clearly understand based on which "results" it can be finally considered that "the tolerance analysis results meet the design requirements." Requirements that are referred in the text here are related to what exactly much precise and based on which data and how can be assesed that these requirements are met finally?
3. On the experimental section and also in table 2 there are mentioned some materials for the object, like H-ZLAF66 and H-ZLAF92. It is not very clear for me while reading the article what type of materials are these ones, are they referring to the objects being scanned with the system. Why these materials have been considered for the selection of these materials / selection of the materials that have been used in the experiments? Probably they are simply linked to the materials that are used for the shafts? But is the system in a way adaptable also for other types of materials or there are some limitations from this point of view and if the answer is yes which are these limitations and why such limitations exists? Which are the criteria that are considered for the materials to be considered that they are suitable / not suitable for the realized system? Also in the experimental section few things have to be added I think regarding the reflectivity of the surface of scanned materials. Are there any issues / concerns from this point of view? Are there any limitations of the designed system from this point of view? Can the errors of the system be influenced somehow also by the material characteristics (if for instance the material has high degree of reflectivity or high rate of absorbing the light) - can such factors generate some suplementary errors and if yes how they can be corrected by the online system?
4. In the experimental section, by my point of view as it is now it is too short. I think there have to be added besides the physical picture of the system few more detailed images with the setup of the experiment (much closer look in the active area), more details about the procedure of scanning (there have been used multiple images for scanning the object in different areas, images are compared with CAD models of a part used as caliper part / method). What about the calibration / re-callibration procedures? What about the controlling system (software that it is used in this case)? I would like to see some detailed images of the scanning process (setup of parameters, error detection how it is done online / how the corrections are realized finally in the online way (mode) after detecting of these errors. What about the repeatability of the scanning system? Also beside providing the image in Figure 10 plus some details about the right fitting of the curve, I would like to recommend to the authors to introduce in this section some references regarding the findings of the results of the alignments in comparison with the results find by other researchers that have been approaching similar research with their own systems. Are the results better as compared to the ones reached by other researchers in this field? I know - I have seen in the introduction section being specified that this research is tailored for large-sized stepped shafts within the diameter range of 500-700mm and to correct measurement errors under conditions of slight surface tilt, this paper proposes the design of an imaging optical system tailored for runout error detection in such stepped shafts in particular, but somehow some sort of discussions (in the light of other similar research (papers / references / researches done by the other researchers in this domain) I really think that have to be added before the final conclusions section of this article in one form or another.
5. All references concerning this article are way too old and by my point of view insufficient. 13 references in total, dated in the period 1996 -2018 (one reference only is from 2017 and one from 2018) doesn't leave me a very good impression about the novelty of the topic approached in this article. Personally I am expecting to see a total number of 25 references in this article (out of which more than half are dated in the period 2021-2024) and this significantly can change my perception (and I think also of the readers of this article). As I have said probably there are some new references that can be introduced in section 1 (at the beginning) - having just [5] references in the Introduction section is not at all very consistent from my point of view, but most of the new references can be added in the experimental section (section 3) in my opinion when results can be discussed in the light of other findings of the researchers in this domain, for a better comparison and better emphasizing of what this system is bringing new / better in terms of results compared to the existing systems that have some limitations / lacks in realizing of such control with their systems.
Taking into consideration all these missings, that I am considering it significant and important, I will go in this step with a major revision request for this article, but with high confidence that the authors can improve the manuscript in the next variant by fulfilling / adding new clarifications / new references / new information in their paper, so as this article will be accepted to be published on Applied Sciences journal in the end.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThere are some areas in the paper in which aspects in the way they are presented they have to be corrected (Speling and grammar errors), such as (these are only few examples, but there are more aspects to be reconsidered in the text):
1. "s. In order to improve 23 the detection accuracy and detection efficiency, The direct laser"....(Line 24), "Where,l is object distance,and " (Line 106), "Where ƒ is the measured distance," (Line 190) - one new sentence cannot start with "Where f is"
2. "lens lenses" (Line 230)
3. "Perform tolerance analysis on the imaging optical system" (Line 262) - who has to perform this / me or who is reading the article?
4. "After tolerance analysis of the optical system, the total reduction of MTF in the worst case is not more than 0.3" (Line 269) - which is the measuring unit here? "milimeters or microns or %"?
etc.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors of the paper "Optimized Design of Online Detection Imaging for Large-Sized Stepped Shafts Runout Error" have produced an article that fulfils all the written and unwritten rules of academic writing. The approach is interesting in terms of online detection of runout errors in large-sized stepped shafts, modelling, simulations and experimental results. The article is also carefully written and is in accordance with the MDPI template. I read this article carefully and as rarely happens; I have nothing to recommend for improvement, the article is carefully written. It is not based on a new method but the triangulation method is correctly implemented with elements of originality and performance that lead me to recommend the article for publication in this form.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors claim that the manuscript images have been refined with corrections made to printing discrepancies, modifications to the text size, and the addition of more comprehensive labeling notes. However, the reviewer failed to perceive enhancements in several figures. For instance, in figure 8, the labels are illegible because of both the characters utilized and their diminutive size. Moreover, in figure 9, there is a lack of labeling of the vertical axes (a and b). In addition, the labels in panels (c) and (d) remain indistinct. Furthermore, captions would benefit from the inclusion of more in-depth explanatory texts.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsRe-review of manuscript entitled “Improving Design for Online Detection and Imaging of Runout Error in Large-sized Step Shafts” by Yanan Zhao 1,2, Jie Duan, 1,2,* ,Hongtao Zhang1,2,*,Jiyu,Li1,2and Yuting,Liu1,2
- Re-write the Introduction section so that it can be easily understand.
- In Fig. 2, after the light is reflected from the shaft, draw the optical paths with two beams in each path.
- Check formula 8 the sign after the “y” upper letter “ ’ ” is not well positioned.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors have been carefuly improved all the requested made suggestions and recommendations that I have been made to them in the previous round of revision.
The new information and images added in the manuscript have brought much better clearance concerning the theoretical and experimental aspects provided in the manuscript - I appreciate also that title of the manuscript has been changed and is much suitable in this way with the content of the paper.
Taking into consideration all the above aspects I recommend the paper to be published in its current form in the Applied Sciences MDPI journal.
Author Response
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