This document describes research into producing crack-free functionally graded materials (FGMs) composed of stainless steel 316L and alumina through spark plasma sintering (SPS). Initial experiments studied sintering the individual powders and their composites to determine optimal SPS conditions that yielded high density. Subsequent experiments fabricated FGM pellets with varying numbers of interlayers but still encountered cracking near alumina-rich layers. Adding yttrium-stabilized zirconia to the interlayers helped reduce cracking by lowering residual stresses. A crack-free FGM pellet was successfully produced using 19 interlayers between the stainless steel and alumina ends, with the hardness varying steadily throughout the gradient.