On the 27th of July 2022 an advert was placed on a Telegram offering citations in an academic paper. This article is the only one that matches the keywords in the advert according to Web of Science.
The advert was placed after the paper had been submitted and presumably after it had been accepted subject to minor revision.
Can I ask the authors why they cited some of the works below?
References 11, 12, 15, 17 and 18 are to the benefit of A. Yan and are about electrical components, not fracture mechanics.
I've looked through the introduction section of this paper and suggest that ~65% of the papers cited are inappropriate for the subject area of the text. It would be great if the authors could respond to any of the points detailed below and provide a rebuttal.
I cannot see any relevance to the subject area of the paper for the references [11], [12], [15], [17] and [18] identified by N H Wise. For cases where other citations appear inappropriate, below I give a quote from the paper and commentary on my view of the content in the cited references.
(I ran out of energy on this by the end of the introduction - covering 38 references and finding 25 to be of limited relevance)
The paper states: “According to a report, North America plans to use about 154 kg of magnesium alloys in its automotive industry by 2020, instead of using 286 kg of alloys [1], [2], [3].”
[1] mentions these numbers specifically, but [2] and [3] concern reinforced concrete not Mg alloys and have no relevance to the automotive industry. I must note that I could only access the abstracts of [2] and [3] but it seems highly unlikely that the full text would provide anything of relevance. (in passing I note M Huang, H Huang and W Zhang are authors common to both [2] and [3])
The paper states: “Therefore, a better knowledge of fatigue behavior and damage processes in magnesium alloys is essential [4].” [4] concerns damage detection in steel bridges – it makes no mention of fatigue nor magnesium.
The paper states: “Moreover, in wrought magnesium alloys, fatigue properties are mostly anisotropic due to initial texture and microstructure [7].” [7] concerns fracture testing of solid rocket propellant HTPB – it makes no mention of fatigue nor magnesium.
The paper states: “Several studies were conducted to assess the fatigue property of structural components under various loading conditions [8].” And a little later “For some steels, the FCG rate decreases slowly to a minimum value, then increases to the stable growth rate [8], [9].” [8] takes us back to reinforced concrete and the effects of sustained (not cyclic) loads – fatigue doesn’t appear to feature in the thesis. [9] does appear relevant to the central topic but concerns magnesium not steel as said in the second statement above.
The paper states: “Crack growth acceleration occurs immediately after applying a tensile overload in some other materials [10], [11], [12], [13], [14].”
As N H Wise notes [11] and [12] concern design of electronic devices,
[10] does deal with overload effects in fatigue (though in composites not metallics). [14] returns to reinforced concrete, does have some cyclic loading cases but not crack growth rate measurements, nor overloads as far as I could tell (this is another paper from M Huang, H Huang and W Zhang).
[13] is absolutely central to the topic as described.
The paper states: “On the other hand, acceleration in FCG rate is usually observed by application of a compressive under-loading [14], [15].” See comments on [14] above, and from N H Wise on [15] – neither support this statement in the paper.
The paper states: “. Crack closure, crack blunting, and the compressive residual stresses of the crack tip are among the parameters that interrupt the effect of overloading on FCC [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21].” N H Wise has commented on the irrelevance of [17] and [18] from Yan et al. [19] is a study of creep not fatigue – the word fatigue appears twice in the text of the paper but overload effects are not even mentioned in passing. [20] is a study of shear strength in monotonic loading and makes no mention of fatigue. [21] studies flexural strength of reinforced concrete in monotonic loading – no fatigue tests are conducted (this another paper featuring W Zhang).
The paper states: “Chen and Gao [26] studied retardation in a cast Mg–Al–Zn alloy under a tensile overload through the constant stress intensity factor range FCG experiments at different crack lengths.” The ref listed as [26] is by different authors and gives an analysis of riveting in an Al alloy – there is no fatigue testing or mention of overloads.
The paper states: “As mentioned before, two primary factors that play important roles in crack retardation are residual stress and crack closure on tip of the crack during loading cycle [29], [30], [31].” [29] concerns monotonic testing of Ni superalloy fabricated via additive manufacturing – there are no fatigue test [30] concerns monotonic testing of reinforce concrete – there is no mention of fatigue [31] concerns shear testing of joints under monotonic loading – there is no fatigue testing
The paper states: “Due to the complex issues which is occur around the crack tip under overloading, issues such as stress–strain and elastic–plastic behavior [32], a special model is needed to predict the crack growth retardation [33], [34], [35].” [32] is a theoretical analysis of a rather special polarised beam of light – it is spectacularly irrelevant to the topic suggested here. [33] concerns interaction of nano-particles with a laser – there is no relevance to fatigue [34] and [35] concern nanoscale wear testing of GaN – there is no link to fatigue
The paper states: “However, considering the literature, it can be found that current models can be used for fatigue crack growth, and not for crack initiation [36], [37], [38].” [36] concerns the growth of cuprate superconducting films – there is no mention of fatigue because it is not relevant. [37] does at least concern Mg alloys but it looks at corrosion not fatigue – the words fatigue and crack are not found in the text of [37]
In summary the introduction cites 38 papers – of these 25 (listed below) seem to be inappropriate. 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17,18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37
As of 8 Dec 2023 Dimensions indicates 17 citations for this paper, despite the issues highlighted above. This is pretty good for a paper reporting a well known phenomenon in mechanical fatigue, and contributing no new methodology, nor mechanism to interpret the results. A little scrutiny, however, shows that the majority of these citations are not deserved as the citing papers are in completely disconnected fields. The majority of the citations are coming from papers using DFT on fullerenes and related systems.
On the face of it the chance that all of these citations are through simple accident, or, honest error, seems remote. Can the authors think why their paper might be attracting so much attention in a scientifically unlinked field?
Filipo Berto, the utlimate author of the paper, is member of the editorial board of Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics:
RETRACTED
This retraction posted on-line no later than 22/03/2024
This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/article-withdrawal).
This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor in Chief.
After a thorough investigation, the Editor in Chief has concluded that this article must be retracted due to serious errors, such as including 24 inappropriate references, a duplication of Figure 13 from Figure 14 and changes of authorship without the approval of the Editor in Chief.
The scientific community takes a very strong view on this matter and apologies are offered to readers of the journal that this was not detected during the submission process.
It is also noted that Flippo Berto is no longer on the editorial board of the journal.
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