Equipment whose function is to transfer heat between streams — heating, cooling, condensing or evaporating — usually across a separating surface, with no direct contact between the fluids. It corresponds to class HE (heat exchangers) of ISO 14224:2016.
Usual types in the process industries (own families and handbooks in Phase 1):
- Shell and tube — the workhorse (TEMA construction standards);
- Plate (gasketed, brazed, welded) — compact, high effectiveness;
- Spiral — fouling and viscous fluids;
- Air cooler (API 661) — heat rejection without cooling water;
- Condensers and evaporators — purpose-built phase change;
- Economizers, heaters and coolers — heat recovery and thermal conditioning services.
From a reliability standpoint the group is dominated by static mechanisms: fouling, corrosion, tube erosion and gasket/tubesheet failure — unlike the rotating universe of Energy Addition to the Fluid.