All this shows that we need in fact not concern ourselves with heat transmission coefficients, but only with the capability of evaporation of the last body when this is scaled to an extent still allowing reasonable operation. We need consider the last body only (or the worst scaled body), because, as we have seen in Chapter VI B, no body of a straight evaporator can evaporate more than the one that evaporates least. The capability of evaporation may be simply expressed in pounds per sq. ft. per hour (Ib/sq. ft. h) and experience has shown that for a straight quadruple, operated with exhaust steam of 10 — 12 psig and a vacuum of 26 — 27 in. Hg, about 7 Ibjsq. ft. h. may be safely assumed. 9p 22°25 X 2240 _ 7159 sq, ft, and, as we choose to make all four bodies alike, the total heating surface of our straight quadruple effect evaporator will be nearly 29,000 sq. ft Tt can easily be shown that such an evaporator can be made to evaporate considerably more, if some bleeding from the Ist and 2nd bodies is practised. We will, however, not analyse further the evaporator with equal bodies and proceed to consider an evaporator to serve the conditions as shown in Fig. 4. Let us start with the last body. This has to evaporate only 13-3t/h, and if we assume as before 7 Ib/sq. ft. h, the required heating surface is '?3* 274 _ 4909 sq. ft. As the 3rd body has to evaporate the same amount as the 4th, we will give it also 4200 sq. ft., although it could safely be made somewhat smaller. For the second and first bodies we will, however, assume higher rates of evaporation, and we will take—based on experience with well-designed evaporators—9 and 10 1b/sq. ft. h respectively. With these figures we find the heating surfaces of the 2nd and Ist bodies to be >"> a 2240 _ 6100 sq, ft. and 39 x 7 Thus our last body will have a heating surface of = 8700 sq. ft. respectively. ‘Thus the total heating surface of the evaporator works out at 8700 + 6100 + 4200 + 4200 = 23,200 sq, ft. This is 209 less heating surface than we found to be required for the straight evaporator. Thus we see that systematic vapour bleeding does not only greatly improve the steam economy, but that it also makes it possible to economise on the size of plant. In order to make the system of Fig. 4 do its work satisfactorily it is necessary to control the pressure of the first vapour at, say, 6 psig—so that the users of Ist vapour can rely on getting their normal pressure at all times. This can easily be done by an automatic reducing valve, which makes up the Ist vapour from exhaust steam, when the pressure drops, and a relief valve, which releases surplus Ist vapour to atmosphere, when the pressure rises. Such an arrangement also makes the whole plant very flexible and adapt- able to greatly varying working conditions, Even if the Ist body were to prove too small to satisfy the requirements of all the users of Ist vapour all the time, these users will never be starved of steam. ‘A well conceived and operated evaporator plant is a very flexible instrument, which adapts itself largely automatically, and can be adapted further by simple external control measures, to a very wide range of variations in working conditions ; nevertheless there is a limit to the total evaporation that can be achieved with a given plant. The main limiting factors are scaling and the maximum back pressure the prime movers will tolerate. (The assumed rate of evaporation of 10 Ib/sq, ft. h. for the Ist body, definitely pre-supposes that the juice entering the Ist body should have been heated in’a pre-heater to a tem- perature a few degrees above the boiling point of the jnice in the Ist body. The fact that pre-heaters were not common practice with straight evaporators explains why it was usual to make all bodies alike, as with unheated juice entering the Ist body, this could not achieve greater evaporation than even a badly scaled last body), For the sake of a better understanding let us now return to the consideration of coefficients of heat transmission. We have assumed, for the system represented in Fig. 4, 8