Abstract: A steam generator has a combustion chamber through which a bundle of steam-generating tubes extends generally horizontally. Air nozzles extend upwardly through the bottom wall of the steam generator and the spacing between the air outlets and the bundle of steam-generating tubes can be adjusted to thereby vary the level at which the fluidized bed is located within the chamber, and to consequently have the bundle of tubes located completely or only partially within the fluidized bed.

Abstract: An erect cylindrical pressure vessel, especially for a nuclear reactor, is constituted from cast-iron or cast-steel elements and is stressed by axially extending angularly spaced axial stressing elements and by axially circumferential peripheral stressing elements or cables. At least one of the axially stressing cables and at least one of the peripheral stressing cables serving for sustaining the operating load of the pressure vessel, i.e. the working elements rather than the addition or additional elements, is provided with a measuring device which triggers an alarm upon the detection of a change in the force developed at the respective stressing element or the length change thereof reaching 90% of the corresponding change at the pressure rating of the vessel.

Abstract: An apparatus for measuring or monitoring changes in the periphery of a vessel, especially a pressure vessel for containment of a nuclear-reactor core, comprises a wire which extends around the periphery of the vessel and is held along this periphery by a plurality of mechanical elements establishing a predetermined spaced relationship between the wire and the periphery. The wire extends polygonally around these elements and is provided with a displacement-measuring device responsive to any tendency of the wire to shift from its original position. According to the invention, the connecting elements between the wire and the periphery of the vessel are constituted as sheet-metal plates or vanes lying in planes substantially perpendicular to the axis of the wire and extending radially with respect to the axis of the vessel. The vanes are elastically deformable laterally or shiftable in the direction of the axis of the wire and are retained under tension by the tension applied to the wire.