Patent ID: 8657911

Claim:
A moisture separator/heater comprising: a cylindrical main shell with both ends sealed with end plates; a first partition plate disposed in the main shell on a side on which one of the end plates is present to define a header space between the first partition plate and the end plate; a second partition plate disposed in the main shell so as to define a heating space between the second partition plate and the header-side partition plate; a moisture separator disposed in a lower portion of the heating space and removing moisture in steam to be heated that flows in through a bottom of the main shell; a heater disposed above the moisture separator in the main shell; a channel partition plate, that partitions the interior of the heating space in such a way that the steam to be heated having flowed in through a low-temperature steam inlet provided at the bottom of the main shell, flows into the moisture separator, passes therethrough, and flows into the heater; a plurality of heat-transfer supporting plates disposed in the heating space at intervals along a longitudinal direction of the heater; a tube bundle side plate placed on the channel partition plate and extending along the longitudinal direction of the heater, the tube bundle side plate supporting the heater; and a plurality of restricting members disposed in the heating space, wherein the heater includes a heater header disposed in the header space and a U-shaped heat-transfer tube connected to the heater header, the U-shaped heat-transfer tube is composed of a straight tube portion disposed in the heating space and heating the steam to be heated that has passed through the moisture separator and a curved tube portion disposed outside the heating space, the tube bundle side plate has an inner rail attached thereto, the channel partition plate has an outer rail on which the inner rail is placed in a manner slidable along a longitudinal direction of the U-shaped heat-transfer tube, and the restricting members sandwich the tube bundle side plate with the outer rail to restrict rounded-back deformation thereof and are disposed so as to satisfy an expression of 0.2 ≦L 1 /L, L 2 /L ≦0.4 where L represents a total length of the straight tube portion, L 1 represents a distance from one of the restricting members that is closest to the heater header to an end of the straight tube portion on the side where the heater header is present, and L 2 represents a distance from one of the restricting members that is closest to the curved tube portion to an end of the straight tube portion on the side where the curved tube portion is present.