Evaporator

Claim 1

An evaporator comprising a casing, an evaporation chamber defined within said casing and having thereover feed liquid spray means, first and second headers on the outside of said evaporation chamber, plural bundles of substantially horizontal heat-transfer tubes extending within said evaporation chamber between said headers and so arranged that steam will flow through said tubes successively from one of said bundles to the next upper bundle, the number of said tubes in each bundle being smaller than that in the next lower bundle, concentrated liquid collector means at the bottom of said evaporation chamber, at least one plate positioned in said first header between adjacent two of said tube bundles and formed with at least one opening therethrough, a pipe extending from said opening down into a first head chamber defined in said first header under said plate at the inlet of the bottom tube bundle, through which pipe condensate collected on said plate will fall by gravity into said first head chamber, and means for introducing superheated steam into said first head chamber, said pipe opening in said first head chamber adjacent the opening of said means for introducing super-heated steam.