What Is a Heat Exchanger?

A heat exchanger is a device that moves thermal energy from one fluid (liquid or gas) to another without the two streams mingling. By separating hot and cold flows with tubes, plates, or fins, it lets plants reclaim waste heat, protect equipment from overheating, or bring process fluids up to the precise temperature they need for a reaction or storage.

How Does a Heat Exchanger Work?

  1. Two Separate Circuits carry the hot and cold media.
  2. A Heat Exchanger  Highly conductive material (metal tube, plate, or finned surface) allows heat to flow while keeping fluids isolated.
  3. Counter-flow or Cross-flow Patterns maximize temperature difference and efficiency.
  4. Turbulence Promoters such as baffles or corrugations increase surface contact, boosting transfer without adding excessive pressure drop.

Key Types of Heat Exchangers

Type

Core Features

Typical Duties

Best-fit Situations

Shell-and-Tube

Tube bundle inside a pressure shell; handles high pressure/temperature; easily inspected

Refinery crude coolers, power-plant lube-oil coolers

Dirty or high-pressure service where robustness trumps footprint

Air-Cooled (ACHE/Fin-Fan)

Ambient air drawn across finned tubes; no cooling water needed

Gas-plant compressor after-coolers, remote mining operations

Water-scarce sites or where plume/chemical discharge is restricted

Plate-Type (Gasketed or Brazed)

Thin corrugated stainless plates; compact, high efficiency, easy to expand

HVAC chillers, food pasteurization, waste-heat recovery

Clean fluids, tight spaces, frequent capacity tweaks

Industries & Common Uses

  • Power Generation – condenser cooling, turbine oil, stator water
  • Oil & Gas / Petrochem – gas sweetening (amine), crude preheat, compressor intercoolers
  • Chemical & Pharmaceutical – batch reactor jackets, condensers, solvent recovery
  • Food & Beverage / Biofuels – wort or mash cooling, pasteurizers, ethanol condensers
  • Pulp & Paper – black-liquor heaters, bleaching-chemical cooling
  • Metals & Mining – electrolyte heating, mobile equipment radiator replacement
  • HVAC & District Energy – boiler economizers, chilled-water decouplers

Heat exchangers appear anywhere temperature control drives safety, energy efficiency, or product quality.

Essential Codes & Standards

Code / Standard

Scope & Region

Why It Matters

ASME BPVC Section VIII

U.S. pressure vessels

Design, materials, welds, testing for safe operation

TEMA (Tubular Exchanger Manufacturers Association)

Global, shell-and-tube specifics

Nomenclature, construction details, performance formulas

PED (Pressure Equipment Directive) & CE Mark

European Union

Mandatory compliance and marking for pressure equipment ≥0.5 bar; streamlines EU market access

API 660 / 661

Oil & gas industry

Extra design rules for refinery shell-and-tube and air-cooled units

Conforming to the right code guarantees mechanical integrity, legal compliance, and smoother plant approvals—cutting risk long before the exchanger ever sees process conditions.

Find Heat Exchanger Part Numbers

Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Part Numbers
Air-Cooled Heat Exchanger Part Numbers
Plate-Type Heat Exchanger Part Numbers