Fuel 324 (2022) 124778

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Fuel
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel

Full Length Article

Data-driven approach to predict the flow boiling heat transfer coefficient of

liquid hydrogen aviation fuel
Yichuan He, Chengzhi Hu *, Bo Jiang *, Zhehao Sun, Jing Ma, Hongyang Li, Dawei Tang
Key Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization and Energy Conservation of Ministry of Education, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116023, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The airline industry targets net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Hydrogen, a fuel with high energy density and
Machine learning clean combustion products, is poised to substitute kerosene as a new kind of future aviation fuel. Nonetheless,
Neural networks hydrogen aviation fuel is extremely sensitive to heat leakage during the transportation from the fuel tank to the
Hydrogen flow boiling
engine on account of the liquid hydrogen flow boiling. Up to now, a reliable tool to predicate the hydrogen flow
Heat transfer coefficient
boiling heat transfer coefficient with high accuracy remains inaccessible. Herein, we propose a data-driven
machine-learning model to predict this coefficient via a non-linear regression approach. To this end, we first
collected over 864 data points with a hydraulic diameter ranging from 4 mm to 6 mm and with a flow velocity
ranging from 1.33 m/s to 11.56 m/s. Then, eight machine learning regression models are developed and
compared with empirical correlations. Among them, the Extra Tree model exhibited the best prediction per­
formance with a MSE <0.01% and a R2 = 0.9933, significantly outperforming previously reported generalized
prediction correlations. Finally, we found that the Ja number, indispensable to the input parameters, served as a
fundamental descriptor in the accurate prediction of the hydrogen flow boiling heat transfer coefficient. The
machine learning-based technique provides a potent tool to predict the hydrogen nucleate flow boiling heat
transfer coefficients with great precision.

heat leakage, and the flowing boiling coefficient is considered to be the

1. Introduction
Before the outbreak of the pandemic, commercial airlines account for
about 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, already exceeding the
emissions of Germany as a whole (2.2%) [1]. Regarding this fact, the
aviation industry pledges to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, an
ambitious target that will require large-scale decarbonization and sus­
tainable aviation fuels [2]. Hydrogen, with the advantages of high en­
ergy density and clean waste products, is now gaining serious traction as
a possibility of sustainable aviation fuel, and already tests get underway
to prove its effectiveness [3,4]. It is expected that the direct combustion
of hydrogen by a gas turbine engine is capable of reducing the impact of
aircraft emissions on climate by 50% ~ 75% [5]. Nonetheless, hydrogen
poses a well-documented challenge to serving as aviation fuel. It is re­
ported that liquid hydrogen is extremely sensitive to heat leakage during
the transportation between the fuel tank and the engine, causing liquid
hydrogen flow boiling. This is because of its high saturation temperature
of roughly 20 K at atmospheric pressure and the low Onset of Nucleate
Boiling (ONB) of just 0.1 K [6,7]. Therefore, a better understanding of
the liquid hydrogen flow boiling process will help estimate the effects of
most indispensable parameter to investigate this process [8-10].
Despite the significance of the flowing boiling coefficient, there have
been a few investigations about liquid hydrogen on account of its
dangerousness of hydrogen. Walters et al. [11] first conducted an
experimental study on the liquid hydrogen boiling heat transfer coeffi­
cient via a horizontal copper tube, with a Reynolds number ranging from
22,000 to 66000. These experimental results demonstrate that the heat
transfer coefficient of hydrogen boiling is undoubtedly susceptible to the
steam quality and the Reynolds number, but saturation pressure plays a
decisive role in the heat transfer. Nevertheless, the obtained experi­
mental data was at a saturation state, and the influence of the subcooling
on the coefficient was still elusive. Shirai et al. [12,13] subsequently
investigated the nucleate boiling heat transfer coefficient of two-phase
hydrogen and the heat flux, with an experimental condition of sub­
cooling from 0 to 8 K and flow velocities from 1.33 to 12.90 m/s at 6.9
atm. They discovered that the flow boiling can be triggered by slight
wall super-heat and that the critical heat flux occurs at low vapor quality
[14]. Although the heat transfer coefficient of hydrogen flow boiling has
been experimentally studied, it shows strong dependence on experi­
mental conditions. This means that experimental methods could not

* Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: huchengzhi@dlut.edu.cn (C. Hu), bjiang@dlut.edu.cn (B. Jiang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2022.124778
Received 7 April 2022; Received in revised form 8 May 2022; Accepted 2 June 2022
Available online 9 June 2022
0016-2361/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. He et al. Fuel 324 (2022) 124778

Nomenclature T Temperature [K]

v Flow speed [m/s]
Bd Bond number We Weber number
Bo Boiling number
Cp Specific heat [J/(kg k)] Greek symbols
Dh Hydraulic diameter Thermal conductivity [W/(m K)]
) [m]
λ
(
F =exp - 0.53L/dRe0.4 σ Surface tension [N/m]
G Gravitational acceleration [m/s2] μ Viscosity [Pa s]
h Heat transfer coefficient [W/(m2 k)] ρ Density [kg/m3]
hfg Latent heat [J/kg] Subscripts
Ja Jacob number l Liquid phase
l Loss function/channel length [m] sat saturated
Pr Prandtl number w wall
q Heat flux [W/cm2]
Re Reynolds number

Table 1
Experimental data for hydrogen flow boiling.
Sources Dh (mm) Tsat (K) v (m/s) Data points
Shirai [12] 5.95 29 1.33–8.65 121
Tatsumoto [24] 4.00, 6.00 26, 29 1.52–11.56 590
Yoneda [13] 5.965 29 1.37–7.78 153
provide enough data to investigate the effect of heat leakage on liquid
hydrogen transportation. Except for the experiments, the prediction via
empirical correlations affords an alternative for obtaining enough flow
boiling heat transfer coefficients with broad conditions [15-18]. To this
end, researchers collect experimental data of flow boiling heat transfer
coefficient in public pieces of literature and conclude correlations.
However, it is undeniable that these correlations can be used to predict
the heat transfer coefficient of liquid hydrogen at a certain accuracy,
only within 30%, as many of these correlations are developed for room
temperature fluids nor cryogens [20].
Recently, big data and artificial intelligence technologies pave the
way for a new technology revolution. Using artificial intelligence to
analyze a huge quantity of experimental data contributes to uncovering
hydrogen flow boiling. In particular, machine learning has been
demonstrated to show strong predictive capability in heat transfer co­
efficient with high accuracy [20-23]. For instance, Kuang et al.[7]
employed Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to identify the key parame­
ters affecting the liquid hydrogen boiling heat transfer. Based on the
identified key parameters, they proposed a concise model for predicting
hydrogen flow boiling heat transfer coefficients with an overall MAE of
12.2%. Then, T. Hughes et al. [19] compared different machine learning
algorithms to screen the most powerful model for predicting boiling heat
transfer coefficients of water, and they found the random forest model
with an absolute average deviation of only about 4%. Yet despite much
progress in the prediction assisted by machine learning, there are still
little research devoting to the flow boiling heat transfer coefficient of
liquid hydrogen.
Herein, we intend to predict hydrogen flow boiling Nusselt numbers
and therefore the heat transfer coefficient by evaluating the perfor­
mance of several machine learning algorithms. Furthermore, the most
significant machine learning model will be compared with generalized
prediction correlations to highlight how the machine learning method­
ology stacks up against the conventional methods. Finally, utilizing the
selected model, we shed light on the influence of key parameters on
hydrogen flow boiling heat transfer coefficient. The study provides a
potent tool for investigating the effect of heat leakage on liquid
hydrogen transportation, contributing to the safe usage of hydrogen
aviation fuel.
2. Methods
2.1. Consolidated datasets
Table 1 summarizes the essential information from these aggregated
datasets. Three sources [12,13,24] have been combined to provide a
consolidated dataset with 864 data points for the hydrogen flow boiling
Nusselt numbers. Shirai et al. [12] investigate the forced convection heat
transfer characteristics at the pressure of 0.7 MPa by quasi-steadily
increasing heat inputs. The inlet temperatures, Tin, are varied from 21
K to around its saturated temperature, Tsat, and the flow velocities from
1.55 m/s up to 12.7 m/s. Tatsumoto et al. [24] investigate the pressures
of 0.4, 0.7, and 1.1 MPa under saturated conditions, where the saturated
temperatures Tsat correspond to 26.0, 29.0, and 31.9 K, respectively.
Yoneda et al. [13] measured heat transfer coefficients for the inlet
temperatures from 20.6 K to each saturated temperature Tsat at 0.4, 0.7,
1.1 MPa. The flow velocity varied from about 0.3 to 15 m/s. Three da­
tabases provide liquid hydrogen flow boiling characteristics at three
different hydraulic diameters. The second database from Tatsumoto et
al. has the widest experimental conditions and provides the most data
points. All the data are collected from the hydrogen vertical upflow
experiment with a tube heater. In general, we cannot utilize all the data
to train the model since we would not have enough data to verify the
model and evaluate its predicted efficacy. As a result, we split the
consolidated dataset into two parts: the training dataset and the testing
dataset for cross-validation. Typically, 70–30%, 75–25%, or 80–20% is
used to divide data between training and testing datasets. Because the
training dataset volume is dependent on the model performance, a fair
rule of thumb is that the training dataset is 3–4 times larger than the
testing dataset. As a result, these two datasets makeup 81 % (700 data
points) and 19 % (164 data points), respectively, of the whole dataset.
2.2. Assessment of the neural network
The measures of linear regression methods are mainly: mean squared
error (MSE), mean absolute error (MAE), R-squared error (R2), adjusted
R2 (R2ad).
MAE represents the sum of the absolute value of the difference be­
tween the target value and the predicted value. Its value ranges from 0 to
positive infinity, regardless of the direction, and only measures the
average modulus length of the prediction error:
1∑ n ⃒ ⃒
MAE = ⃒fpre − fexp ⃒ (1)
n i=1
MSE is the sum of the squares of the distance between the actual and
predicted actual value:

2
Y. He et al. Fuel 324 (2022) 124778

1∑ n
( )2 Table 2
MSE = fpre − fexp (2) Model parameters selected in this study.
n i=1
Model Parameter Value
The proportion of all changes in the dependent variable reflected by
Decision tree Criterion MSE
R2 that the independent variable can explain through the regression
Splitter best
relationship: Min samples split 2
∑n ( )2 Min samples leaf 1
fpre − fexp AdaBoost N estimators 50
R2 = 1 − ∑i=1
n ( )2 (3)
Learning rate 1
i=1 fpre − fexp
loss linear
The adjusted R2 is to explain the false increase of R2 when additional Random Forest Estimators number 100
Min samples split 2
predictors are added to the model, and it will also be used to understand Min samples leaf 1
the predictability of the model: Extra Tree Estimators number 100
[ ] Min samples split 2
( ) n− 1
R2ad = 1 − 1 − R2 (4) Min samples leaf 1
n− p− 1 Gradient Boosting Loss Least squares regression
Learning rate 0.1
Estimators number 100
Subsample 1
2.3. Machine learning models Min samples split 2
Max depth 4
Python version 3.8.10 (https://www.python.org/), Scikit-learn XGBoost Learning rate 0.3
version 0.24.2 (https://scikit-learn.org/stable/), CoolProp version 6.4.1 Max depth 6
Min child weight 1
(http://www.coolprop.org/) are used to create the machine learning
Max delta step 0
models. KNN Neighbors number 5
Weights Uniform weights
2.3.1. Decision tree Leaf size 30
P 2
The decision tree model is based on the known probability of situa­
Metric Minkowski
tions when building the decision tree. Obtain the probability that the Bagging Estimators number 10
expected net present value is greater than or equal to zero. Evaluate the Max samples 1
project risks and determine the feasibility of decision analysis methods. Max features 1
This is a graphical method for the intuitive use of probability analysis.
However, this decision branch is called a decision tree because it is
are boosting methods. Except for some differences in project imple­
drawn as a tree branch.
mentation and problem-solving, the most significant difference is the
definition of the objective function.
2.3.2. AdaBoost
AdaBoost is adaptive; weak learners will be adjusted to support those
2.3.7. k-NearestNeighbor
wrongly classified instances by the previous classifier. AdaBoost is
The core idea of the k-NearestNeighbor algorithm (KNN) is that if
sensitive to noise data and outliers. It may not be accessible to over-fit
most K nearest samples in the feature space of a sample belong to a
other learning algorithms on some issues. Individual learners may be
certain category, then the sample also belongs to this category and has
weak, but as long as each learner’s performance is slightly better than
the characteristics of this category sample. When determining the clas­
random guessing, the final model can prove the integration of strong
sification decision, this method only determines the sample category to
learners.
be classified according to the category of one or several recent samples.
2.3.3. Random forest
2.3.8. Bootstrap aggregation
Random forest is an integrated learning method used for classifica­
Bootstrap aggregation (Bagging) is a technique that reduces gener­
tion, regression, and other tasks. Its working principle is to build mul­
alization errors by combining several models. The main idea is to train
tiple decision trees in the training process and output a category as a
several different models separately and then let all models vote on the
pattern (classification) or average prediction (regression). The random
output of the test instance.
decision tree of a single tree corrects the habit of overfitting the decision
Dimensionless parameters as the input parameters can be used to
tree to its training set.
characterize the flow boiling heat transfer process. And the physical
properties in dimensionless parameters come from the NIST database.
2.3.4. Extremely randomized trees
The Bo number, We number, Pr number, Fr number, Re number, Pe
The Extremely randomized trees (Extra Tree) algorithm is very
number, Bd number, Ja number, and ld number are chosen as the input
similar to the random forest algorithm, and both are composed of many
parameters, which are widely used in the universal correlations to
decision trees. But all the samples used by Extra Tree, only the features
describe the flow boiling. Especially, a dimensionless parameter F
are randomly selected because the splitting is random, so to some extent, ( )
l/d
the results are better than the random forest. (=exp − 0.53Re 0.4 ) [25], which comes from the universal correlations,

are chosen as the input parameter. It has a more specific description of

2.3.5. Gradient boosting the heated surface, i.e., the heating surface’s aspect ratio and the import
Gradient boosting is a machine learning technique used for regres­ Re number. The final hyperparameters used in this study for the ML
sion and classification tasks. It gives a prediction model in a group of models are summarized in Table 2.
weak prediction models (usually decision trees). The algorithm is called
a gradient-boosted tree. When the decision tree is a weak learner, it is
generally better than a random forest.

2.3.6. eXtreme Gradient Boosting

Both eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) and Gradient Boosting

3
Y. He et al. Fuel 324 (2022) 124778

rest of the distribution. The supervised learning model is a feature based

on physical and data-driven standards. Considering the strong depen­
dence of the regression models and the basic assumptions in each ma­
chine learning model, the model only needs to deal with the relevant and
non-redundant features[26]. Usually, the Pearson correlation coefficient
is used to measure the correlation between two variables parameters
with a value r between − 1 and 1. When r >0, the two variables are
positively correlated. On the contrary, it means that the two variables
are negatively related. Consequently, the larger the absolute value is, the
stronger the correlation is. Therefore, the Pearson correlation coefficient
is evaluated for each pair of parameters in the training database to
determine its correlation with the heat transfer coefficient.
Fig. 2 shows a heat map of Pearson’s rank coefficient to show the
monotonous relationship between all variables in the data set. Because it
does not rely on any primary distribution, this is a non-parametric
technique. The heatmap demonstrates that dimensionless parameters
have a significant association (>0.5) with Ja. Unfortunately, the
generalized correlation does not take into account the parameter Ja.

3.2. Model performance comparison

Fig. 1. Swarm plot of the target variable.
The prediction performance of eight ML models was investigated and
studied using the full data of the heat transfer coefficient of hydrogen
3. Results and discussion
flow boiling gathered in this study. The dimensionless parameters are
assumed to be the input parameters for ML models, whereas the Nusselt
3.1. Data distribution and correlations
numbers are considered the goal parameters. The needless duplication
of the ML model is eliminated, the prediction accuracy is attained, and
The swarm plot of the target variables in various liquids is shown in
the model’s scalability is encouraged by choosing input parameters.
Fig. 1. The swarm plot shows all results and primary distribution in the
The comparison of the predicted and experimental Nusselt number
database. The x-axis is the classification of databases in which hydrogen
under different ML models is shown in Fig. 3, and the performance
is the only working fluid in this manuscript. We use a swarm plot instead
characteristics of the ML models are included in Table 3. Surprisingly,
of a box plot or violin plot to show the distribution of the Nusselt
with MSE/MAE of 0 and R2/R2ad of 1, the Decision Tree model performs
number. Except for the outliers, which are depicted as dots, this box
flawlessly in the training dataset. However, the performance of the
describes the quartile of the distribution; the beard extension covers the
testing dataset is not satisfactory, which indicates that the ML model has

Fig. 2. Pearson rank coefficient heatmap for all variables in datasets.

4
Y. He et al. Fuel 324 (2022) 124778

Fig. 3. Comparison of machine learning-predicted hydrogen flow boiling Nusselt number data with experimentally obtained data Models include: (a) Decision Tree;
(b) AdaBoost; (c) Random Forest; (d) Extra Tree; (e) XGBoost; (f) Gradient Boosting; (g) KNN; (h) Bagging.

been overfitted [27]. The findings indicate that the Decision Tree model
may not be appropriate for this project. In addition, the AdaBoost,
Gradient Boosting, and KNN models did not do well in terms of pre­
diction. High MSEs/MAEs and low R2/R2ad are not the desired result in
the ML regression process. The remaining four ML models (Random
Tree, Extra Tree, XGBoost, Bagging) have shown excellent performance,
especially on the training dataset; both of them have a high R2/R2ad
(>0.99). On the testing dataset, the primary performance difference can
be seen. Although the R2/R2ad of the ML model is >0.96 in the testing
dataset, the R2/R2ad of the Extra Tree model is 0.99. This demonstrates
that the Extra Tree model performs admirably on both the training and
testing datasets. Furthermore, the MAE/MSE of the Extra Tree model is

5
Y. He et al. Fuel 324 (2022) 124778

Table 3
Performance of different model predictions.
Model Train test Model train test

Decision Tree MSE 0 12344.513 AdaBoost MSE 39481.73 45689.40

MAE 0 67.9352 MAE 172.9216 176.4117
R2 1 0.972197 R2 0.893896 0.897096
R2ad 1 0.970572 R2ad 0.892512 0.891082

Random Forest MSE 1242.022 8614.083 Extra Tree MSE 1.287e− 24 3508.639
MAE 18.70457 54.39256 MAE 6.800e-13 31.5238
R2 0.996662 0.980599 R2 0.999999 0.99209
R2ad 0.996618 0.979465 R2ad 0.999999 0.99163

XGBoost MSE 1587.33 9214.42 Gradient Boosting MSE 4756.681 13107.13

MAE 20.5916 55.0708 MAE 40.8283 68.8140
R2 0.99573 0.97924 R2 0.987216 0.970479
R2ad 0.99567 0.97803 R2ad 0.987050 0.968754

KNN MSE 18170.54 35011.79 Bagging MSE 4467.329 15055.93

MAE 69.9971 102.675 MAE 39.15408 85.72513
R2 0.951168 0.921145 R2 0.994176 0.979675
R2ad 0.950531 0.916536 R2ad 0.993643 0.96661

Table 4
Extra Tree Model predictions for fixed input parameters.
Case Input dimensionless Training dataset Testing dataset
numbers
R2 R2ad R2 R2ad

1 Bo, We, Prl, Frl, Rel, Pel, 0.99999 0.99999 0.99182 0.99134
Bd, Ja, ld, F
2 Bo, We, Prl, Frl, Rel, Pel, 0.99999 0.99999 0.99277 0.99240
Bd, Ja
3 Bo, We, Prl, Frl, Rel, Pel, 0.96938 0.96907 0.75260 0.74150
Bd
4 Bo, We, Prl, Frl, Rel, Pel 0.96938 0.96912 0.75562 0.74629
5 Bo, We, Prl, Rel, Bd, Ja 0.99999 0.99999 0.99186 0.99155
6 Bo, We, Prl, Rel, Ja 0.99999 0.99999 0.99163 0.99136
7 Bo, Prl, Rel, Ja 0.99999 0.99999 0.99030 0.99005
8 Bo, Prl, Rel 0.96938 0.96925 0.75187 0.74722
9 Prl, Rel 0.24774 0.24559 0.26231 0.25314
10 Bo, Prl 0.96692 0.96682 0.09526 0.08402

extremely low, accounting for less than half of the MAE/MSE of the
other three models. Extra tree consists of many decision trees, all the
samples used, but the features are randomly selected because the split is
random, so better results will be obtained to some extent. When training
each decision tree, the random forest provided by Scikit-learn does not
look for the optimal partition on all features on each node, but on a
random subset of features, which increases the randomness of the
ensemble learning sub-model. The more differences between sub-
models, the more conducive to integrated learning, and one of the Fig. 4. Feature selection results obtained by Extra Tree Model.
ways to create differences are to increase randomness. The random
forest encapsulated by Scikit-learn looks for the optimal partition on the
The model performance for fixed input parameters is examined using
random feature subset, which further increases the randomness. The
the Extra Tree model, as shown in Table 4, to compare the effect of
second-best performing model, XGBoost, usually can outperform many
changing input parameters. We employed various combinations of
other ML algorithms since it uses Newton’s method, which employs a
dimensionless parameters to perform ten instances as inputs. As can be
higher-order alternative to optimization problems [28]. The decision
observed, Case1′ s performance is inferior to Case 2, indicating that ld
tree is a nonparametric supervised learning method, which can sum­
and F are ineffective input parameters. If there are too many input pa­
marize decision rules from a series of data with features and labels and
rameters, multiple higher-order terms must be formed, resulting in
present these rules with the structure of a tree graph to solve classifi­
excess of features, learning parameters, and complexity [32]. When Ja is
cation and regression problems. Each internal node in the decision tree
not utilized as an input parameter in Cases 3, 4, and 5, the ML model’s
represents a judgment on an attribute, each branch represents an output
prediction accuracy is considerably lowered. As a result, Ja helps in­
of a judgment result. Finally, each leaf node represents a classification
crease the ML model’s prediction accuracy. Cases 6 and 7 demonstrate
result. However, the decision tree model easily produces over-fitting
that We have a moderate impact on accuracy, with a more significant
[29]. In addition, tiny data changes back to change the shape of the
effect reflected in the testing set. The Bo, on the other hand, is crucial.
whole tree and is unfriendly to unbalanced data. The combination of
When comparing Cases 8, 9, and 10, it can be seen that R2/R2ad exhibits a
PCA, ICA, or the dimensionality reduction algorithm in the feature se­
cliff-like decline for Case 9 without Bo input.
lection module can prevent overfitting [30,31].

6
Y. He et al. Fuel 324 (2022) 124778

Table 5
The mean absolute relative errors between predictions of models and experimental results.
Authors Correlations MAE R2

Fang et al.[38] ( )0.29 [ ( μ ) ]− 1 6.30% 0.8897

0.72 ρl lf
Nu = Ff M− 0.18 Bo0.98 Fr0.48
lo Bd ln Ya
ρg μlw
Gungor and Winterton[39] ( ) Dh b 11.59% 0.7913
Nu = E × hl + Shpool
λl
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
Liu and Winterton[40] ( )2 Dh c 22.49% 0.7930
Nu = (E × hl )2 + Shpool
λl
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
Kim and Mudawar[25] Dh 61.70% 0.4460
Nu = h2nb + h2cb d
λl
Kandlikar[15] ( ) Dh e 539.1% 0.2321
Nu = hl C1 CoC2 + C3 BoC4 Ffl
λl
Warrier et al.[11] Dh 100% 0.3489
Nu = E × hl f
λ1
[ ( 1 )0.87 ]
Oh and Son[41] 446.3% 0.2600
0.3
Nu = 0.034Re0.8 l Prl 1.58
Xtr
Kuang and Wang[7] Nutp = 427.13Bo0.6223 0.023Re0.8 0.4
fo Prl
13.2% 0.9641
Extra Tree Model – <0.01% 0.9933
{
a 1 for pr ⩽0.43
Y = , Ff = 1715 for nitrogen, Not listed for hydrogen.
1.38 − p1.15
r for pr > 0.43
0.4 λ1
( )− 1 ( )− 0.55 − 0.5 0.67
b
E = 1 + 24000Bo1.16 + 1.37(1/Xtt)0.86 ,hl = 0.023Re0.8 l Pr ,S = 1 + 1.15 × 10− 6 E2 Re1.17 l ,hpool = 55p0.12
r − log10 pr M q
Dh
[ ( ) ]0.35 ( )
ρ ( ) 1
0.4 λ1 − 0.55 − 0.5 0.67 −
c
hl = 0.023Re0.8
fo Pr l ,E = 1 + xPrl l − 1 ,hpool = 55p0.12r − log10 pr M q ,S = 1 + 0.055E0.1 Re0.16 f0
Dh ρg
[ ( P )0.70 ]( ) [ ( )0.08 )0.94 ( )0.25 ]( )
t 0.4 λl Pt ( 1 ρg 0.4 λl
d
hnb = 2345 Bo p0.38
r (1 − x)− 0.51 0.023Re0.8 l Pr l ,hcb = 5.2 Bo We−fo0.54 + 3.5 0.023Re0.8 l Pr l
Pf Dh PF Xt ρl Dh
) )
e
( 1 − x 0.8 (ρg 0.5 0.8 0.4 λ1
Co = ,hl = 0.023Refo Pr l ,
x ρl Dh
f λ 1
hl = 0.023Re0.8
fo Prl
0.4
,E = 1.0 + 6.0Bo1/16 − 5.3(1 − 855Bo)χ 0.65
Dh

Fig. 5. Hydrogen flow boiling Nusselt number variations with (a) system pressure; (b) flow speed; (c) heat flux.

7
Y. He et al.
The majority of the input samples used the characteristics at the top
of the tree in the final prediction decision. As a result, the predicted
contribution of the models may be used to evaluate the relative rele­
vance of the features. By averaging these projected activity rates on
numerous random trees, the estimated variance may be decreased and
used to feature selection. The feature selection results of Extra Tree are
depicted in Fig. 4. It can be seen that the top five factors are Ja, Bo, Prl,
We, Rel. Kim and Mudawar’s general correlation can further confirm
these most important features[25] (except Ja). Also, some machine
learning works do not include Ja number in the input parameters for
predicting heat transfer processes [21,33]. However, Ja number is a
measure of liquid superheat and latent heat in the process of liquid phase
change. The Ja number is often employed as the benchmark of the
bubble departure process in the boiling process [34], demonstrating the
significance of the Ja number in the boiling process. To sum up, Ja
number is recommended as one fundamental descriptor.
3.3. Understanding predictions performance
The ability of the machine learning model (Extra tree model) on the
consolidated dataset was tested in this part, and the results were
compared to generalized correlations for heat transfer coefficient pre­
dictions, as illustrated in Table 5. The value Ff for hydrogen is not
investigated in Fang’s work; thus, we adopt the number 1315 that Kuang
recommends [7]. Fang’s correlation forecasting findings have an MAE of
6.30 percent, which appears to be good. This correlation proposes an
adjustment for wall surface liquid viscosity, making the correlation more
suited for low-temperature fluids[14]. However, Fang’s correlation is
not recommended since it is very dependent on the choice of Ff. The heat
transfer Nusselt number was separated into two portions by the Gungor-
Winterton and Liu-Winterton correlations: the enhanced single liquid-
phase convection heat transfer and the suppressed pool boiling heat
transfer. Previous research has demonstrated that these connections are
extremely adaptable to room temperature fluids[35]. The Kim-Mudawar
correlation can solve the heat transmission ability of a system using
nucleate boiling and convection boiling primarily and has good accu­
racy, particularly in micro/mini channels[25]. Despite considering
several parameters, this correlation does not function well for heat
transfer prediction of low-temperature fluids. This might be since it was
created using room temperature fluids. The Kandlikar, Warrier, and Oh-
Son correlations are notoriously over-predicted. The scattered pre­
dictions indicate that the stability of these correlations are not satis­
factory. Hence, they are not recommended. Since it is an associative
created exclusively for hydrogen, Kuang’s correlation outperforms the
others. However, even the most powerful predictive correlations cannot
match the predictive potential of a machine learning model. Large
amounts of data may aid machine learning. Its tremendous capacity aids
in resolving a variety of issues[36,37]. Our original intention is to use it
to predict the heat transfer coefficient of hydrogen flow boiling.
3.4. Physical results validation
In both the training and testing datasets, the ML model performed
well. However, one drawback of machine learning models is that they
might provide unrealistic or unphysical outcomes in various situations
[42]. We will test the “physical” performance of ML models in this part.
The fluctuation of the hydrogen flow boiling Nusselt number with sys­
tem pressure, flow speed, and heat flux is shown in Fig. 5. The greater
the system pressure, the more significant the Nu number, and hence the
higher the heat transfer coefficient, as seen in Fig. 5(a). The bubble
departure size will shrink as system pressure rises, and the bubble de­
parture frequency will also increase. Small bubbles are more prone to
wall slippage, accelerating boundary layer rupture. The higher flow
velocity accelerates the bubble’s exit and causes it to slide against the
wall in Fig. 5(b). Convective heat transfer can also be improved by
increasing flow speed. Finally, a more significant flow speed may lead to
8
Fuel 324 (2022) 124778
a higher heat transfer coefficient. Nu rises initially and subsequently
drops when the heat flux increases, as shown in Fig. 5(c). When the heat
load is large, the number of vaporization cores on the inner wall of the
evaporation tube grows dramatically, and the production speed of vapor
bubbles surpasses the separation speed, forming a vapor film, also
known as the departure from nucleate boiling (DNB). It’s worth
mentioning that the ML model’s prediction error for the crucial heat
flow DNB is <5% compared to the experimental value. Sound reasons
support the predicted results of ML reasonable physical properties.
4. Conclusion
In this study, the machine learning approach is utilized to explore the
flow boiling heat transfer coefficient of hydrogen aviation fuel. The
suggested approach for determining hydrogen nucleate flow boiling
heat transfer coefficients is presented in this paper. With the aid of the
consolidated dataset, the Extra Tree model is used to investigate the
prediction. The following are the primary conclusions:
1. Liquid hydrogen nucleate flow boiling heat transfer coefficients are
compiled into a consolidated dataset. The dataset was collected from
three sources and contains 864 data points.
2. The Extra Tree model outperforms the other seven machine learning-
based models in prediction, as well as the input parameters are also
contrasted for a suitable approach. For this dataset, the relevant
input parameters are: Bo, We, Prl, Frl, Rel, Pel, Bd, Ja. And the Ja
number is indispensable to the input parameters as one fundamental
descriptor.
3. The ML model outperformed very reliable generalized prediction
correlations compared to the generalized correlation. ML models did
not provide unrealistic or unphysical findings to predict liquid
hydrogen nucleate flow boiling heat transfer coefficients. A reliable
prediction approach is unlocked.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of
China (Grant No. 52176058, 52106078, 51806028, 51876027,
52106226), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Univer­
sities (DUT20RC(3)095, DUT22RC(3)003), and the Natural Science
Foundation of Liaoning Province of China (2021-BS-068).
References
[1] Eregowda T, Chatterjee P, Pawar DS. Impact of lockdown associated with COVID19
on air quality and emissions from transportation sector: case study in selected
Indian metropolitan cities. Environ Syst Decis 2021;41:401–12. https://doi.org/
10.1007/S10669-021-09804-4/TABLES/6.
[2] Dincer I, Acar C. A review on potential use of hydrogen in aviation applications. Int
J Sustain Aviat 2016;2:74. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJSA.2016.076077.
[3] Ma J, Jiang B, Li L, Yu K, Zhang Q, Lv Z, et al. A high temperature tubular reactor
with hybrid concentrated solar and electric heat supply for steam methane
reforming. Chem Eng J 2022;428:132073. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.
CEJ.2021.132073.
[4] Khandelwal B, Karakurt A, Sekaran PR, Sethi V, Singh R. Hydrogen powered
aircraft : The future of air transport. Prog Aerosp Sci 2013;60:45–59. https://doi.
org/10.1016/J.PAEROSCI.2012.12.002.
[5] Zhang C, Chen L, Ding S, Zhou X, Chen R, Zhang X, et al. Mitigation effects of
alternative aviation fuels on non-volatile particulate matter emissions from aircraft
gas turbine engines: A review. Sci Total Environ 2022;820:153233. https://doi.
org/10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2022.153233.
[6] Kuang Y, Han F, Sun L, Zhuan R, Wang W. Modeling and numerical investigation of
hydrogen nucleate flow boiling heat transfer. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2021;46:
19617–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IJHYDENE.2021.03.084.
Y. He et al.
[7] Kuang Y, Han F, Sun L, Zhuan R, Wang W. Saturated hydrogen nucleate flow
boiling heat transfer coefficients study based on artificial neural network. Int J
Heat Mass Transf 2021;175:121406. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.
IJHEATMASSTRANSFER.2021.121406.
[8] Darr SR, Hu H, Glikin N, Hartwig JW, Majumdar AK, Leclair AC, et al. An
experimental study on terrestrial cryogenic tube chilldown II. Effect of flow
direction with respect to gravity and new correlation set. Int. J Heat Mass Transf
2016;103:1243–60.
[9] Darr SR, Hu H, Glikin NG, Hartwig JW, Majumdar AK, Leclair AC, et al. An
experimental study on terrestrial cryogenic transfer line chilldown I. Effect of mass
flux, equilibrium quality, and inlet subcooling. Int. J Heat Mass Transf 2016;103:
1225–42.
[10] Tang X, Pu L, Shao X, Lei G, Li Y, Wang X. Dispersion behavior and safety study of
liquid hydrogen leakage under different application situations. Int J Hydrogen
Energy 2020;45:31278–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IJHYDENE.2020.08.031.
[11] Walters HH. Single-Tube Heat Transfer Tests with Liquid Hydrogen. Adv Cryog Eng
1961:509–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0534-8_53.
[12] Shirai Y, Tatsumoto H, Shiotsu M, Hata K, Kobayashi H, Naruo Y, et al. Forced flow
boiling heat transfer of liquid hydrogen for superconductor cooling. Cryogenics
(Guildf) 2011;51(6):295–9.
[13] Yoneda K, Shirai Y, Shiotsu M, Oura Y, Horie Y, Matsuzawa T, et al. Forced Flow
Boiling Heat Transfer Properties of Liquid Hydrogen for Manganin Plate Pasted on
One Side of a Rectangular Duct. Phys Procedia 2015;67:637–42.
[14] Dittus FW, Boelter LMK. Heat transfer in automobile radiators of the tubular type.
Int Commun Heat Mass Transf 1985;12:3–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/0735-1933
(85)90003-X.
[15] Kandlikar SG. A general correlation for saturated two-phase flow boiling heat
transfer inside horizontal and vertical tubes. J Heat Transfer 1990;112:219–28.
https://doi.org/10.1115/1.2910348.
[16] Ganesan V, Patel R, Hartwig J, Mudawar I. Review of Databases and Correlations
for Saturated Flow Boiling Heat Transfer Coefficient for Cryogens in Uniformly
Heated Tubes, and Development of New Consolidated Database and Universal
Correlations. Int J Heat Mass Transf 2021;179:121656. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.
IJHEATMASSTRANSFER.2021.121656.
[17] Zhang J, Ma Y, Wang M, Zhang D, Qiu S, Tian W, et al. Prediction of flow boiling
heat transfer coefficient in horizontal channels varying from conventional to small-
diameter scales by genetic neural network. Nucl Eng Technol 2019;51(8):
1897–904.
[18] Lee SK, Lee Y, Brown NR, Terrani KA. Elucidating the Impact of Flow on Material-
Sensitive Critical Heat Flux and Boiling Heat Transfer Coefficients: An
Experimental Study with Various Materials. Int J Heat Mass Transf 2020;158:
119970. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IJHEATMASSTRANSFER.2020.119970.
[19] Hughes MT, Fronk BM, Garimella S. Universal condensation heat transfer and
pressure drop model and the role of machine learning techniques to improve
predictive capabilities. Int J Heat Mass Transf 2021;179:121712. https://doi.org/
10.1016/J.IJHEATMASSTRANSFER.2021.121712.
[20] Qiu Y, Garg D, Kim S-M, Mudawar I, Kharangate CR. Machine learning algorithms
to predict flow boiling pressure drop in mini/micro-channels based on universal
consolidated data. Int. J Heat Mass Transf 2021;178:121607.
[21] Zhu G, Wen T, Zhang D. Machine learning based approach for the prediction of
flow boiling/condensation heat transfer performance in mini channels with
serrated fins. Int J Heat Mass Transf 2021;166:120783. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.
IJHEATMASSTRANSFER.2020.120783.
[22] Kwon B, Ejaz F, Hwang LK. Machine learning for heat transfer correlations. Int
Commun Heat Mass Transf 2020;116:104694. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.
ICHEATMASSTRANSFER.2020.104694.
Fuel 324 (2022) 124778
[23] He Y, Hu C, Li H, Jiang B, Hu X, Wang K, et al. A flexible image processing
technique for measuring bubble parameters based on a neural network. Chem Eng
J 2022;429:132138. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CEJ.2021.132138.
[24] Tatsumoto H, Shirai Y, Shiotsu M, Hata K, Naruo Y, Kobayasi H, et al. Forced
convection heat transfer of saturated liquid hydrogen in vertically-mounted heated
pipes. AIP Conf Proc 2015;1573:44. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4860681.
[25] Kim SM, Mudawar I. Review of databases and predictive methods for heat transfer
in condensing and boiling mini/micro-channel flows. Int J Heat Mass Transf 2014;
77:627–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IJHEATMASSTRANSFER.2014.05.036.
[26] Van Dijck G, Van Hulle MM. Speeding Up the Wrapper Feature Subset Selection in
Regression by Mutual Information Relevance and Redundancy Analysis. Lect Notes
Comput Sci (Including Subser Lect Notes Artif Intell Lect Notes Bioinformatics)
2006;4131 LNCS-I:31–40. https://doi.org/10.1007/11840817_4.
[27] Ying X. An Overview of Overfitting and its Solutions. J Phys Conf Ser 2019;1168:
022022. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1168/2/022022.
[28] Nielsen D. Tree Boosting With XGBoost Why Does XGBoost Win “Every” Machine
Learning Competition? Norwegian University of Science and Technology, n.d.
[29] Helmbold DP, Schapire RE. Predicting Nearly As Well As the Best Pruning of a
Decision Tree 1997;27:51–68.
[30] Sun W, Chen J, Li J. Decision tree and PCA-based fault diagnosis of rotating
machinery. Mech Syst Signal Process 2007;21:1300–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/
J.YMSSP.2006.06.010.
[31] Pedregosa F, Varoquaux G, Gramfort A, Michel V, Thirion B, Grisel O, et al. Scikit-
learn: Machine Learning in Python Pedregosa, Varoquaux, Gramfort et al. vol. 12.
2011.
[32] Domingos P. A few useful things to know about machine learning. Commun ACM
2012;55:78–87. https://doi.org/10.1145/2347736.2347755.
[33] Qiu Y, Garg D, Zhou L, Kharangate CR, Kim SM, Mudawar I. An artificial neural
network model to predict mini/micro-channels saturated flow boiling heat transfer
coefficient based on universal consolidated data. Int J Heat Mass Transf 2020;149:
119211. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IJHEATMASSTRANSFER.2019.119211.
[34] Zhou P, Huang R, Huang S, Zhang Yu, Rao X. Experimental investigation on bubble
contact diameter and bubble departure diameter in horizontal subcooled flow
boiling. Int. J Heat Mass Transf 2020;149:119105.
[35] Kuang YW, Wang W, Zhuan R, Yi CC. Simulation of boiling flow in evaporator of
separate type heat pipe with low heat flux. Ann Nucl Energy 2015;75:158–67.
https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ANUCENE.2014.08.008.
[36] Vinyals O, Babuschkin I, Czarnecki WM, Mathieu M, Dudzik A, Chung J, et al.
Grandmaster level in StarCraft II using multi-agent reinforcement learning. Nat
2019;575(7782):350–4.
[37] Castelvecchi D. DeepMind’s AI helps untangle the mathematics of knots. Nature
2021;600:202. https://doi.org/10.1038/D41586-021-03593-1.
[38] Fang X, Wu Q, Yuan Y. A general correlation for saturated flow boiling heat
transfer in channels of various sizes and flow directions. Int J Heat Mass Transf
2017;107:972–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.
IJHEATMASSTRANSFER.2016.10.125.
[39] Gungor KE, Winterton RHS. A general correlation for flow boiling in tubes and
annuli. Int J Heat Mass Transf 1986;29:351–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/0017-
9310(86)90205-X.
[40] Liu Z, Winterton RHS. A general correlation for saturated and subcooled flow
boiling in tubes and annuli, based on a nucleate pool boiling equation. Int J Heat
Mass Transf 1991;34:2759–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/0017-9310(91)90234-6.
[41] Oh HK, Son CH. Evaporation flow pattern and heat transfer of R-22 and R-134a in
small diameter tubes. Heat Mass Transf Und Stoffuebertragung 2011;47:703–17.
https://doi.org/10.1007/S00231-011-0761-4/FIGURES/17.
[42] Pilozzi L, Farrelly FA, Marcucci G, Conti C. Machine learning inverse problem for
topological photonics. Commun Phys 2018.1–7.;2018(11):1. https://doi.org/
10.1038/s42005-018-0058-8.