Heat transport in tokamaks is several orders of magnitude higher than predicted by the collisional theory. A physical understanding of the phenomena limiting energy confinement is a basic requirement in order to make reliable predictions about the fusion gain of the future tokamak reactor ITER and to investigate new scenarios and plasma regimes. Since decades anomalous transport has been addressed by means of empirical and semi-empirical models. The theoretical research assumes that micro-instabilities driven by plasma turbulence are responsible for the confinement degradation, but the full simulations with the comprehensive theoretical codes require far too long computing time to afford a validation against an extensive experimental database. Only in the early nineties one dimensional, theory based models have been developed, relying on the fluid approach. These models allow comparisons with the experimental results without any ad hoc adjustment of empirical fitting parameters and, on the other hand, without too long computing time. In the present work the most commonly accepted models are validated against a large database of selected ASDEX Upgrade discharges. Important results from JET, the largest tokamak built so far, are included as well, to test the models on a different sized device and to increase confidence in transport predictions and in extrapolations to ITER. As a result of the systematic comparison with the available data, qualitative as well as quantitative evaluations of the predicting capability of the models are presented. A physics interpretation of the heat transport phenomenology in the conventional scenario is proposed and discussed.
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