Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer #1:

The paper presents a research study on the mechanical strength and durability properties of ternary
blended cementitious composites containing granite quarry dust as natural sand replacement. The
paper has original content and worthy for publication in Construction and Building Materials. I can
recommend the paper for a possible publication. However, following comments must be considered
carefully before this recommendation.

- I recommend you providing a graphical abstract.

Graphical abstract have been attached in the first page of the manuscript

Advice: To comply with the reviewer comment. (completed)

- Provide research highlights.

Research highlights have been input in the second page of the manuscript

Advice: To comply with the reviewer comment. Research highlight is 3-5 short points which present the
major outcome of the work. 1 point will have about 10-12 words (max) (completed)

- Compare your methodology to the others and clearly supply info about its drawbacks.

I could not understand this question clearly

Advice: To comply with the reviewer comment and cite the papers which uses similar testing procedures
as yours in GQD study. (incomplete)

- Please make a more comprehensive review of the published literature. Mention about other studies
using granite wastes as a useful materials in various sector.

A more comprehensive review of the published literature have been discussed in the introduction
from line 99 to 180. Meanwhile, incorporation of GQD in various sector have been also reported in the
study.

Advice: To comply with the reviewer comment by expanding the literature review as suggested
(completed)

- Shorten the conclusions and give main results of your study.

The conclusions have been condense and shorten from line 832 to 849.

Advice: To condense and shorten conclusions to focus only the primary finding and outcome of work.
(completed)

- I also recommend editing your paper according to the instructions for authors in the journal website.

The paper have been edited accordingly.

Advice: To check out the instruction for authors in the CBM journal website for the correct format to be
used in preparing the revised manuscript. (completed)

Thank you for your good study.

Reviewer #2:

The topic is interesting and relevant.

The strength values are close to each other, in order to make any judgment, we need to know number
of samples and standard deviation. there seems to be prejudgment from authors that 60% must be
better according to literature. The QDS is coarser, for case of 100%, the w/b ratio is even lower, I don't
expect 60% replacement to be most optimized.

Standard deviation and the number of samples have been stated clearly in each test results in the
Figure and Table in section 3. Such prejudgment has been removed and replaced by a more relevant
statement from line 34 to 37 to avoid misunderstanding on this manuscript.

Advice: Provide the standard deviation for the charts/tabulated results. (completed)

Remove statements that optimum is 60% in introduction. (completed)

Advice: Rebut saying that the results covers whole range of GQD content from 0-100%. Give a range of
optimum rather than a specific value. (completed)

Fixing admixture dosage and changing w/b ratio is rather odd. I expect same w/b and change of
admixture dosage to achieve the same performance. unlike w/b ratio, the admixture effect on
performance should not be significant.

Similar approach have been provided as follow.

Atis, C. D. (2003) ‘Accelerated carbonation and testing of concrete made with fly ash’, Construction and
Building Materials, 17, pp. 147–152.
Benli, A., Karatas, M. and Gurses, E. (2017) ‘Effect of sea water and MgSO 4 solution on the mechanical
properties and durability of self-compacting mortars with fly ash / silica fume’, Construction and Building
Materials, 146, pp. 464–474. doi: 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.04.108.
Cheng, S. et al. (2018) ‘Durability and microstructure of coral sand concrete incorporating
supplementary cementitious materials’, Construction and Building Materials. Elsevier Ltd, 171, pp. 44–
53. doi: 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2018.03.082.
Pedro, D., Brito, J. De and Evangelista, L. (2017a) ‘Evaluation of high-performance concrete with recycled
aggregates : Use of densified silica fume as cement replacement’, Construction and Building Materials.
Elsevier Ltd, 147, pp. 803–814. doi: 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.05.007.
Pedro, D., Brito, J. De and Evangelista, L. (2017b) ‘Structural concrete with simultaneous incorporation of
fine and coarse recycled concrete aggregates : Mechanical , durability and long-term properties’,
Construction and Building Materials. Elsevier Ltd, 154, pp. 294–309. doi:
10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.07.215.
Raudonis, V. (2016) ‘Advanced mechanical properties and frost damage resistance of ultra-high
performance fibre reinforced concrete’, Construction and Building Materials, 126, pp. 26–31. doi:
10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2016.09.012.
Santamaría, A. et al. (2018) ‘A study on the durability of structural concrete incorporating electric
steelmaking slags’, Construction and Building Materials, 161, pp. 94–111. doi:
10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.11.121.
Smarzewski, P. and Barnat-hunek, D. (2016) ‘Mechanical and durability related properties of high
performance concrete made with coal cinder and waste foundry sand’, Construction and Building
Materials. Elsevier Ltd, 121, pp. 9–17. doi: 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2016.05.148.
Advice: The change in w/b is a simulation of the production condition of a concrete batching facility
where the constituent materials content are fixed while the water content is slightly varied to obtain a
given level of workability. Similar approach is also practiced by a number of research papers to gauge
the influence of certain additions/modifications on the water demand of the concrete mixture (provide
list 7-8 number of prior publications in CBM as example) (completed)

There are many additional explanation which is not contributing to this paper. is very difficult to read
through the paper due to repetitive affirmative statements.

Repetitive affirmative statements in Section 3 “Results and discussion” from line 403 to 756 have
been enhanced in order to improve the author’s comfortability in reading.

Advice: To check and remove repetitive statements which appear in the text body of the manuscript
(e.g: “The fines from GQD helps to fill up the pores in the aggregate phase and densified the
cementitious matrix which results in………..” which is repeated many times in the text body of the
manuscript. You can use the “search” function in MS Word to help in facilitating the correction.
(completed)

I recommend to re-write the paper with better presenting experimental work including number of
samples, standard deviations, error of measurements and less comparison and justification for every
statement.

Standard deviation and the number of samples have been stated clearly in each test results in the
Figure and Table in section 3

Provide the standard deviation for the charts/tabulated results. (completed)

Reviewer #3:

This purpose of this paper is not clear. The stated purpose is to examine the effect of GQD on
mechanical and durability properties of blended concrete. But most of the effects are seen when the
GGBS and PFA partially replace the portland cement. The GQD effect seems fairly small and it is not
clear whether the variations that are observed are within the uncertainty in the measurements (an
uncertainty analysis is completely missing so it is difficult to assess the likelihood that the variations are
within the noise).

The discussion in Section 3 have been improved.

Advice: The main variable parameter of the work is on the different replacement level of sand with GQD.
Try to focus the discussion on the effect of the variation in the GQD content instead of repeatedly
discussing the C-S-H and C-A-S-H effect on pore refinement. (completed)

The paper seems to be primarily trying to identify an optimum amount of replacement of GQD in
blended concrete, and finds that 60% replacement is optimal. However, it is quite unlikely that this
result is general, and it is quite likely that optimal replacement level for any other GQD source would
depend significantly on the density and particle size distribution of the material compared to the fine
aggregate it is replacing. In any event, most of the properties vary by extremely small amounts with the
amount of GQD replacement, giving variations of no more than 10% from the mean (i.e., compressive
strength, flexural strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity). Again, variations of no more than 10% are
probably about what one would expect from natural measurement variations.

Amendment have been done accordingly.

Advice: provide a range on the optimal inclusion levels instead of a single value. It should be
EMPHASIZED that the study also had established the suitability of the use of GQD (a by-product from
the quarry operations) as full replacement of natural sand without significant impairment to the
mechanical strength, durability and length change performance of the mortar as compared to the
control mortar. This is evident based on marginal variation in terms of the performance parameters
even with the inclusion of GQD as a complete replacement of natural sand. It is a major finding as this
signify the possibility for large volume recycling of GQD (industrial by-product) to replace river sand (a
finite natural resource) for the production of sustainable mortar materials and reduce reliance on the
natural river sand resources. (completed)

One technical issue is how the mixtures were proportioned. All proportions were done on a mass basis,
which is the usual method. However, when the materials all have different densities, proportions based
on mass result in different volume fractions of the materials (thereby affecting both the porosity volume
and the distance from any aggregate jamming fraction) that is likely to have a significant effect on
property variations. But this influence is not mentioned very much in the paper (only the bulk density
section of the paper addresses this). So it is quite difficult to tell from the data how much of the effects
are due to the asserted causes (fineness, surface area, etc.) or just different volume fraction proportions
which would have similar effects.

The mix proportional has been updated according to absolute volumetric method based on the final
w/c ratio in Table 2.
Advice: To do a correction on the mix design to take into account the variances in volume fraction due
to variance of the SG between river sand and quarry dust. The resultant variance of the material
proportion is expected to be minimal as the SG of river sand and GQD does not varies significantly.
(completed)

The compressive strength section and flexural strength section are quite similar to each other, which is
not surprising since the proposed causes of the observed effects are exactly the same in each case. If
the paper is eventually accepted, these two sections should be combined into a much shorter section
that addresses both at the same time.

The compressive strength section and flexural strength section have been amended according to the
suggestion by the reviewer. Such amendment can be found from line 461 to 528.

Advice: To combine and discuss the flexural and compressive sections into one section as advised by the
reviewer. (completed)

The value of the fracture surface examination by SEM in Section 3.11 is unclear since there is no way to
provide quantitative data from such sections and any interpretations are merely speculative because
one cannot be certain whether the observed surfaces are typical or atypical. In fact, the surfaces are
likely to differ considerably from the bulk by the nature of the fact that this is where the fracture
occurred. If the paper is eventually accepted, this whole section could probably be omitted.

The works in Section 3.11 has been improved for better illustration.

Advice: To omit the Section 3.11 as advised by the reviewer (to defend first). (completed)

The paper also suffers from a lot of English language problems. Most of the sentences are either
awkwardly worded or contain significant grammar errors. There are too many occurrences to list in this
review.

The significant grammar errors in the manuscript have been omitted.

Advice: To send the final version after correction to professional proof reading after all the corrections
are done. (completed)

Figure 12 appears twice in the manuscript, and at least one figure reference in the text is misnumbered
(should be Figure 8 instead of Figure 5 in the first sentence of Section 3.6)

The figure and table references have been proper check.

Advice: To amend according to the advise of the reviewer. (completed)

All in all, this paper seems to be a simple exercise in determining the "optimal" amount of GQD
replacement for one particular set of materials, which probably has little or no generality to other
material sources.

A more appropriate amendment was conducted. XRD result for both NRS and GQD have been input in
the study as well for a clearer illustration on the focus material. The XRD image inserted is presented
in Figure 2 for GQD while Figure 4 for NRS.
Advice: It should be re-iterated that the primary aim of the work is to establish the suitability of the use
of GQD as a partial or complete sand replacement material for making structural mortar. At the end of
the study, it has been established that the GQD can be used either as a partial or complete
replacement of natural river sand. This is because there were no significant variation in the
mechanical strength, durability properties and length change behavior of the mortar with the
inclusion of GQD as partial or complete replacement of natural river sand in the mortar mix
proportion. This point can be included as one of the major conclusion of the study as well. Hence, the
study is not a simple exercise to determine the optimal amount of GQD replacement but a
comprehensive investigation conducted to study the possibility and the effects of the GQD for use as a
partial or complete sand replacement in making structural mortar. A comprehensive body of knowledge
on the effect of GQD use as partial or complete sand replacement on the mechanical strength, durability
properties, length change behavior on drying has been established in the study. The optimal amount of
GQD is an additional finding for optimum use of the GQD material. (completed)