Here’s an interactive calculator implementing three major boiling heat transfer correlations for vertical tubes:
Chen (1966) — the most widely used for flow boiling in tubes. It computes HTC as the sum of a convective term (Dittus-Boelter × F factor) and a nucleate boiling term (Forster-Zuber × suppression factor S). The Martinelli parameter Xtt governs the two-phase multiplier F.
Rohsenow (1952) — a classic pool boiling correlation. It uses a surface-fluid constant C_sf (0.013 for water on steel) to relate wall superheat to heat flux, then combines with a single-phase liquid convective term.
Gungor-Winterton (1986) — an enhanced version of Chen’s approach. It introduces the Boiling number Bo = q″/(G·h_fg) to better capture the nucleate boiling enhancement factor E, and uses the Stephan-Abdelsalam pool boiling model internally.
Physics Captured:
- All water saturation properties (ρ, μ, k, cp, h_fg, σ, Pr) are estimated as functions of pressure
- The chart shows how HTC varies across the full quality range for your current inputs
- Intermediate parameters (Re, Xtt, F, S, E, Bo) are all shown so you can audit the calculation
For real boiler design, you’d want to cross-check with measured steam tables (e.g. IAPWS-IF97) and verify that the quality and mass flux stay within each correlation’s validated range.
Boiling Heat Transfer Coefficient Calculations for Vertical Tubes
CFD Modeling of Boiling Flow
- This Heat transfer coefficient can be used for thermal boundary conditions of tubes for modeling of boiler tubes