Heat exchanger with helically coiled tubes

Claim 1

In a heat exchanger, the combination comprising an upright cylindrical pressure vessel, a bank of tubes in the form of a plurality of concentric helices provided with spacer means, a tubular column extending through the center of the helices, support members connected to and extending radially of said tubular column, said spacer means including, for each helix, a plurality of spacer bars equiangularly distributed around the helix and each aligned with a spacer bar of the next adjacent helix so that rows of spacer bars extend radially of the concentric helices, each spacer bar being formed of two sections which are fitted on either side of a vertical row of the helical tubes and joined to form a spacer bar and tube assembly means for connecting the spacer bars at their upper ends to a corresponding one of said support members, each spacer bar in each row is separated from the next spacer bar in the row, the separation between each two spacer bars that are adjacent each other in a row is maintained by a set of distance pieces connected to one spacer bar and abutting a porTion of the adjacent spacer bar and tube assembly and equidistantly separated from each other lengthwise of the spacer bars, and, for any spacer bar lying between two other spacer bars, the distance pieces of the set which is associated with that spacer bar and one of the other two spacer bars are staggered relatively to the distance pieces of the set associated with that spacer bar and the other of the other two spacer bars.