A NIMS research team fabricated heat-resistant steel test specimens using laser powder bed fusion (LPBF)—a form of metal 3D printing—and subjected them to creep testing for up to 10,000 hours.

Heat crawling up the hot end like this is known as heat creep and there are a variety of ways that hot ends try to cope with the need to be hot and cold at the same time. Most hotends today are ...