RETRACTED: Modified Modeling Fracture Toughness of Functionally Graded Steels in Crack Divider Configuration (Retracted article. See vol. 53, pg. 4427, 2019)

Fracture toughness of functionally graded steels in crack divider configuration has been modeled. By utilizing plain carbon and austenitic stainless steel slices with different heights and arrangements as electroslag remelting electrodes, functionally graded steels were produced. The fracture toughness of the functionally graded steels in crack divider configuration was found to depend on the type, volume fraction, and position of containing phases. According to the area under stress-strain curve of each layer in the functionally graded composites, a mathematical model has been presented to predict fracture toughness of functionally graded steels using the rule of mixtures. There is a good agreement between experimental results and those acquired from the analytical model. Also a modification method has been proposed for better predicting the fracture toughness of the composites. The modification was performed so that the position of each layer could be contributed to the modeling. The results show that after modification, the agreement between experimental and analytical results is better than the situation in which no modification was applied.