Microwave Plasma System for Continuous Treatment of Railway Track

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper presents a microwave plasma reactor with a maximum operating frequency of 2.45 GHz was constructed with a power of 15 kW in the context of moving track processing. The thermal imaging of the metal surface directly in contact with the microwave plasma can measure the relationship between the peak temperature and the plasma parameters, e.g, the microwave power, the total gas flow rate, the inner diameter and profile of the boron nitride nozzle, and the microwave plasma can be sprayed to the outside. This work is important for the railway track maintenance and keep the right profile relationship between wheel and the rail. The following comments should be addressed.

1.The reviewer didnot see any optimization work in this paper, only some basic design iteration. Be careful when you would like to use the words "optimize".
2.Please compare your technique with other rail grinding technology, the Pros and Cons.
3. Is there any relationships among the microwave plasma frequency, sensitive removal layers, and reactivity?
4.The thermocouple type and spec should be provided, type T, K or J? and detailed sepc.
5.The font size of the legend is inconsistent (Fig.1), the picture is not clear, and the content is illegible(Figs.7 and 9).

Comments for author File: Comments.txt

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

The authors would like to thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. Below please find the answers to your comments. All changes are red colored throughout the revised version of the manuscript. 

1.The reviewer didnot see any optimization work in this paper, only some basic design iteration. Be careful when you would like to use the words "optimize".

Optimized in the Conclusion section were replaced.

2.Please compare your technique with other rail grinding technology, the Pros and Cons.

Done

3. Is there any relationships among the microwave plasma frequency, sensitive removal layers, and reactivity?

Due to the complexity of the third body layer composition, at present we do not have enough comprehension and test methodology to enable such analysis. As explained in Conclusions, for the next stage of this research we have extended our collaboration to the National Physics Laboratory (NPL) U.K. who will help with the analysis methods as well as with creating a phantom model of the third body layer for estimating, testing and comparing specific effects & structure models at laboratory scale. 

4.The thermocouple type and spec should be provided, type T, K or J? and detailed sepc.

Thermocouple type K – specification of temperature range specified

5.The font size of the legend is inconsistent (Fig.1), the picture is not clear, and the content is illegible(Figs.7 and 9).

Font corrected, resolution of Figs. 7 and 9 is higher; these photos are better quality in the Figures pdf.

Reviewer 2 Report

- "Literature review" section is missing;

- There is no information about the difference between the presented solution and other similar solutions.

- Figure 3. - some descriptions have been partially obscured, incl. "Plasma ign ....";

- Figure 7. - illegible scales and descriptions;

- Figure 9. - illegible drawing on the right, incl. descriptions "Line 1", "Line 2";

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

The authors would like to thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. Below please find the answers to your comments. All changes are red colored throughout the revised version of the manuscript.

- "Literature review" section is missing;

More references added & commented

- There is no information about the difference between the presented solution and other similar solutions.

Done

- Figure 3. - some descriptions have been partially obscured, incl. "Plasma ign ....";

Corrected.

Figure 7. - illegible scales and descriptions;

Higher resolution figures added however, for a full understanding of Figure 7, please refer to the separated file Figures.pdf 

- Figure 9. - illegible drawing on the right, incl. descriptions "Line 1", "Line 2"; Corrected

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

thank you for sending your paper to Technologies. The topic about microwave plasma system for continuous treatment railway track is interesting and novel theme. I would like to propose you some improvements of your paper:

1. Line 60 -61 – when you have one sentence with two or more references the raise question is that one or more of references is redundant. So, it will be always better to explain each of reference at lest in two to three sentence and after explaining the research gap.
2. Try to avoid finish sentence with “etc.”
3. Please explain all abbreviations. Some readers may not be familiar with abbreviations.
4. On two places you have footnote. Its very usual to have a footnote in technical scientific paper. Can you incorporate this footnote to the text?
5. Results and discussion, you have joint to one chapter. For readers is always easier to have chapter about results and then chapter about discussion.
6. Figure 7 is low resolution. Can you add better figure?
7. Figure 11 and 12 are excellent. For sure, you need more effort to explain thus figures in text.

Regards,

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

The authors would like to thank you for taking the time to review out work. Please see answers to your comments/questions below. All changes throughout the revised  manuscript are marked in red.

1. Line 60 -61 – when you have one sentence with two or more references the raise question is that one or more of references is redundant. So, it will be always better to explain each of reference at lest in two to three sentence and after explaining the research gap.
2. Try to avoid finish sentence with “etc.” Etc. was deleted
3. Please explain all abbreviations. Some readers may not be familiar with abbreviations. Acronyms list added
4. On two places you have footnote. Its very usual to have a footnote in technical scientific paper. Can you incorporate this footnote to the text? Footnotes incorporated in the text
5. Results and discussion, you have joint to one chapter. For readers is always easier to have chapter about results and then chapter about discussion. We thought about this and we consider that at the present time it will be easier if we leave it this way. However, we are happy to change Section 3 title to Test methodology instead of Results and discussion.

6. Figure 7 is low resolution. Can you add better figure? resolution of Figs. 7 is higher; these photos are better resolution in the file Figures.pdf.

7. Figure 11 and 12 are excellent. For sure, you need more effort to explain thus figures in text.

Done