Predicting onset of nucleate boiling is important in many process design applications. Analytical models proposed in the literature to predict the wall superheat at incipient nucleate boiling fail to account for different fluid-surface combinations and flow conditions. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based analysis is undertaken in this study to formulate fluid independent general correlations to predict the wall superheat at incipient nucleate boiling for natural and forced convection systems. The proposed CFD based correlations encompass different fluid-surface combinations and a wide range of flow conditions. The wall superheat estimates from the developed correlations are in good agreement with available experimental data. Case studies on insulation design to prevent bubble formation in an LNG storage tank and estimating the length of a heating section prior to the advent of nucleate boiling in a heat transfer equipment are presented to demonstrate applicability of the proposed correlations.

在许多过程设计应用中，预测成核沸腾的开始很重要。文献中提出的用于预测初始核沸腾时壁过热的分析模型无法说明不同的流体表面组合和流动条件。在这项研究中进行了基于计算流体动力学（CFD）的分析，以制定与流体无关的一般相关性，以预测自然和强制对流系统在初始核沸腾时的壁过热。所提出的基于CFD的相关性涵盖了不同的流体表面组合和广泛的流动条件。从已开发的相关性得出的壁过热估计值与可用的实验数据非常吻合。