ACE-00010-2023-01

Decision: rate manuscript once again after major changes and another review

April 11, 2023

ACE-00010-2023-01
Modeling the Vibratory Compaction Process of Road Soils

Dear Prof. Mihaiela Iliescu,

We have carefully evaluated your manuscript, entitled: Modeling the Vibratory Compaction
Process of Road Soils, and feel that as it stands we cannot accept it. We might, however, be
able to accept it if you could respond adequately to the points that have been raised during
the review process (see below).

Please revise your manuscript strictly according to the attached Reviewers' comments.
Please pay special attention to the negative assessment and take into account the
comments contained therein.

Your manuscript won't be taken into consideration without the revisions made according to
the recommendations.

Authors are requested to prepare a revised version of their manuscript as soon as possible.
This may ensure fast publication if an article is finally accepted.

Thank you for submitting your work to our journal.

Kind regards,
Henryk Zobel
Editor-In-Chief
Archives of Civil Engineering

Review 1:

Before reviewing, please assess the language accuracy of the paper - [choose A or B]:
[A] The paper is written in correct English or contains acceptable linguistic errors.Obligatory
condition to complete the review form

What discipline the paper may be classified?

Road engineering Geotechnics Road pavements

What kind of contribution to the above mentioned disciplines does the paper
represent?
important

The paper is pertaining to the subject matter:

sufficiently

What kind of problem is presented in the paper?

empirical

The originality of the paper consists in:

The article presents mathematical modeling as the main Author's tool to describe the soil-
ACE-00010-2023-01

vibratory roller interaction and using an experimental approach to confirm the correlation
between the adopted research criteria. This provides a platform for further studies of the
interaction between soil and compaction process.

Can the paper be applied in practice?

indirectly or partially

Is the paper title adequate?

yes

Are the cited references?

sufficient

In my opinion, only figure 6 should be corrected, because it is not entirely obvious what the
number 1 and 2 mean in the legend. In the figure they are cut off.

Review 2:

Before reviewing, please assess the language accuracy of the paper - [choose A or B]:
[A] The paper is written in correct English or contains acceptable linguistic errors.Obligatory
condition to complete the review form

What discipline the paper may be classified?

Transportation engineering Road engineering Geotechnics

What kind of contribution to the above mentioned disciplines does the paper
represent?
of lesser importance

The paper is pertaining to the subject matter:

is incorrect

What kind of problem is presented in the paper?

analytical

The originality of the paper consists in:

I see no originality in this paper.

Can the paper be applied in practice?

in longer term

Is the paper title adequate?

yes

Are the cited references?

insufficient - I suggest references to the following titles: Some standards are mentioned but
not referenced (STAS 8942/1-89).

The manuscript entitled “Modeling the Vibratory Compaction Process of Road Soils” attempts
 ACE-00010-2023-01

to model compaction with mechanical and statistical models. A simple one-dimensional

model with two degrees of freedom is proposed to model the vibration of the roller and the
roller-soil interaction. The model is probably calibrated based on the results from field soil
compaction measurements. Next, the same results are used for a statistical model describing
the relationship between prescribed input variables (amplitude and frequency) and
compaction degree (K). It is unclear whether the previously calibrated mechanical model is
used in the analysis. Optimizing the compaction process and improving compaction
monitoring techniques is an important topic. Nevertheless, it is hard to tell whether the
presented research contributes to it. The manuscript is chaotic. Much irrelevant or basic
information, such as soil or rheology definition, is provided. On the other hand, important
matters are not described sufficiently. The research seems to aim to develop a compaction
monitoring method. Nevertheless, the reference method is not described, and the
compaction degree is not defined. Instead, numerous details are provided (e.g. oedometric
results, mechanical model) that are not included in this compaction assessment. There are
no actual conclusions in the conclusions section. Please find detailed comments below.

Major issues:
- What is the goal of the research? A lot of different results were presented (e.g. mechanical
model of roller-soil interaction or results of oedometer tests) that probably was completely
omitted in the analysis. The statistical model only utilizes information about compaction
amplitude and frequency.
- The methodology is described insufficiently. What does the testing site look like (e.g.
length)? How long were the tested sections (with constant compaction parameters)? The
model is fitted to predict K. How is it defined and measured? The research plan mentions
three variables (amplitude, frequency, and driving speed). Why only two are used in the
analysis?
- The work is prepared carelessly, with numerous minor errors.
Minor issues:
- Language errors should be improved (not only grammatical but also nomenclature). For
example, line 68 should be ‘silt’ instead of ‘dust’.
- Keywords mention ‘rheology’. Also, a definition of rheology is provided in line 47. However,
rheological effects are entirely ignored, and a purely elastic mechanical model is used.
- Many symbols are not explained (e.g. M2-3 in line 82).
- In lines, 133-134 should be x_1, x_2 instead of m_1, m_2.
- Lines 171-172: I am not sure whether results should be formatted and denoted as
numbered equations.
- Line 174 says about the correlation between results. On the other hand, only one value
from the numerical test is compared with one value from the experiment. It should not be
called correlation.
- Line 175: ‘pulsation value’ should probably be called ‘angular frequency’.
- It is confusing to denote frequency with the letter ‘v’. Especially when driving velocity was
variable in the experiment.
- The ’interdependence relation’ could be called normalization (by looking at Eq. 9).
- Table 1. What do the numbers next to ‘Y’ letter mean? What does ‘bar’ stand for?
There may be some potential in this research. However, the manuscript is described very
poorly and is difficult to assess. It cannot be sufficiently improved in major revision. Hence, I
recommend rejecting the manuscript (with an option to resubmit if available).

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