Critical heat transfer rate to flowing cooling water

A physically meaningful correlation was developed for describing the phenomena leading to departure from nucleate boiling (DNB) at a heater wall in flowing cooling water. The correlation was compared with existing empirical and statistical equations and it was checked by numerous experimental results reported by different investigators. It appeared that the correlation, based on a different and new approach to understanding DNB, gave consistently good predictions for the critical heat transfer rate in all the cases examined. The proposed correlation represents a lower limit for the critical heat transfer rate; DNB may here be encountered in certain cases but becomes more and more probable above this boundary value of heat flux to the cooling liquid.