Capillary Rise Calculator
Work out capillary rise instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.
About Capillary Rise Calculator
Capillary rise balances the vertical component of surface tension around the tube's circumference against the weight of the raised column, giving h = 2.gamma.cos(theta)/(rho.g.r). Water in a 0.5 mm radius tube climbs about 28 mm. Mercury, with a contact angle above 90 degrees, gives a negative rise and is pushed down instead.
Formulas
Jurin's law
h = 2 gamma cos(theta) / (rho g r)
Capillary pressure
dP = 2 gamma cos(theta) / r
Worked example
With the default values below, Capillary Rise Calculator returns Capillary Rise of 0.02790. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Surface tensionminimum 0 N/m
- 0.0728 N/m
- Contact angleaccepts 0–180 deg
- 20 deg
- Tube radiusminimum 0 m
- 0.0005 m
- Liquid densityminimum 0 kg/m3
- 1,000 kg/m3
Results
- Capillary Rise
- 0.02790 m
- Same Rise In Millimetres
- 27.903
- Capillary Pressure
- 273.6 Pa
- Wetting Behaviour
- Wetting liquid - it climbs the tube
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Jurin's law
- 3Capillary pressure
- 4Capillary Rise= 0.02790 m
- 5Same Rise In Millimetres= 27.903
- 6Capillary Pressure= 273.6 Pa
- 7Wetting Behaviour= Wetting liquid - it climbs the tube
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 5 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do narrower tubes lift water higher?
The lifting force scales with circumference while the weight lifted scales with area, so halving the radius doubles the rise.
Is this how trees move water?
Partly. Capillarity in xylem helps, but the dominant mechanism is transpiration pull, which can generate far more than capillary pressure alone.