Although the effects of fluid properties, pressure, and subcooling, as well as heater geometry, on the pool boiling critical heat flux. or CHF, are relatively well established, explanations for the surface property effects remain controversial. Proposed formulations, embodying the dependence of CHF on the product of the heater thermal effusivity and thickness are described and compared with available data. A composite correlation for pool boiling CHF, accounting for the conduction and hydrodynamic limits, as well as the effects of pressure, subcooling, and length, is proposed. This effusivity-based correlation is found to predict a broad range of pool boiling CHF data for dielectric liquids, for thermal effusivity values between 0.2 and 120, pressure from 100 to 450 kPa, and subcoolings from 0 to 75 K, with a standard deviation of 12.5%. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.