Investigation of non-local cracking in layered stainless steel with nanostructured interface

A recent experiment of layered stainless steel with nanostructured interface has suggested that a brittle interface can lead to an overall structure with high ductility. Here a cohesive finite element method is employed to investigate the paradox of a brittle nanostructured interface (nanograined interface layer) and a ductile layered stainless steel. Parametric studies show that the more brittle the nanograined interface layer is, the more micro-cracks the nanograined interface layer has, and the more ductile the layered stainless steel is.