Seismic Design and Evaluation of Elevated Steel Tanks Supported by Concentric Braced Frames

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript is mainly about seismic analysis of the steel tanks that have supports from braced frames. The authors analyzed the linear and non-linear dynamic response of the tank with finite element modeling methods, aiming to optimize the design of the tanks and assess their performance and resilience under seismic conditions. The study provides some useful insights in the topic of seismic design, which is an important topic in the civil engineering. Some questions and concerns are required to be addressed:

1) The paper introduced two main analyses, linear and non-linear, both using finite element modeling. However, none of the models can be visualized in a straight-forward way in this paper. 2D or 3D visualization of the models with well-documented designing details are important for readers to comprehend the work.

2) The authors mentioned that two-degree-of-freedom model analysis is conducted along with the finite element modeling in the linear analysis section. The meaning of the two-degree-of-freedom model analysis need to be explained, and where is the analysis?

3) The paper lacks a detailed introduction and description of the implementation details and methodology about the analysis conducted, making it difficult for readers to reproduce the study.

4) The evaluation for the proposed design method is inadequate, more in-depth comparisons with literatures and other related works are necessary.

5) Some sections in this manuscript is not well-structured. The paper would be benefit from a clearer organization of the contents.

6) There are some minor details to pay attention to: for example, in Figure 7, the legend "N Rd", "N b,Rd". Since in the text it is "N_Rd", "N_b,Rd", the authors should unify the way it is represented to make it more readable. There are more details like this that need to be addressed.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The overall English language is fine, with minor issues to be addressed.

Author Response

The authors extend their sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewer for dedicating time to thoroughly review the paper. We greatly appreciate the valuable feedback and recognition of our research article. Answers in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting paper and a new way of looking seismic design and evaluation. I am looking forward to see future applications of this method. The paper could benefit from more discussion in Section 5 that descusses more details about the future application of this method.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Please check the statements in section 3 and 4 to ensure comprehensible conclusions in section 5.

Author Response

The authors extend their sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewer for dedicating time to thoroughly review the paper. We greatly appreciate the valuable feedback and recognition of our research article. Answers in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. First of all, the reviewer is much concerned about the high similarity (30%), especially the 13% similarity to the following paper, with most of the figures and tables being the same.

https://m.moam.info/seismic-design-of-elevated-steel-tanks-with-_5bb4fb9b097c47f2428b45f2.html

Moreover, there are three papers of the very first paper but only two left for this paper, with the most important – first author not participating. The authors need to provide rational justifications on this issue.

2. The RHS and SHS cross-section profiles of the CBF are considered in this study. Are they the commonly used bracing profiles? Is the cross-section profile expected to have an impact on the seismic performance and design?

3. Fig. 3: What is the main difference in the dimensionless base shear values between EC8 and the proposed design method?

4. Table 2: Could the authors elaborate how they determine the parameters using the so-called mechanical analogy approach?

Author Response

The authors extend their sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewer for dedicating time to thoroughly review the paper. We greatly appreciate the valuable feedback and recognition of our research article. Answers in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

After the revision, the quality of the analysis and presentation has been significantly improved. The paper now is much more complete, with detailed description to models, and comparison to other work in literature. Therefore, I recommend the paper to be accepted as it.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have addressed the concerns and comments from the reviewer.