Engineering English
Heat Exchanger
Chemical Engineering · Mechanical Engineering · Last updated: July 30, 2026 · How this entry was written
Definition: A heat exchanger is a device that transfers heat between two or more fluids without mixing them. It is widely used in process plants for heating, cooling, and energy recovery.
Example in context
“We selected a shell-and-tube heat exchanger to recover waste heat from the reactor effluent stream.”
“Reaktör çıkış akımından atık ısıyı geri kazanmak için bir gövde-boru tipi ısı değiştirici seçtik.”
Where engineers use it
Heat exchangers are central to process plant thermal management. Engineers size them using heat transfer coefficients and temperature differences, and they appear in every unit operation involving heating or cooling.
Synonyms: HEX, heat interchange unit
Antonyms: insulator
In Mechanical Engineering
A device that transfers thermal energy between two or more fluids at different temperatures without allowing them to mix. Common configurations include shell-and-tube, plate, and finned-tube designs.
“The plate heat exchanger recovers energy from the hot exhaust stream and preheats the incoming feedwater, cutting the boiler fuel consumption noticeably.”
Practice: can you use “Heat Exchanger” at work?
You are tasked with selecting a heat exchanger for a distillation column overhead condenser. The process stream condenses at 70°C and cooling water is available at 30°C. Determine the required area.
Show a model answer
“We need to specify a heat exchanger for the process cooling duty.”
“Heat Exchanger” in 21 languages
| English | Heat Exchanger |
|---|---|
| Turkish | ısı değiştirici |
| French | échangeur de chaleur |
| German | Wärmeübertrager |
| Spanish | intercambiador de calor |
| Chinese | 热交换器 |
| Arabic | مبادل حراري |
| Portuguese | trocador de calor |
| Russian | теплообменник |
| Japanese | 熱交換器 |
| Italian | scambiatore di calore |
| Vietnamese | bộ trao đổi nhiệt |
| Hindi | ऊष्मा विनिमायक |
| Thai | เครื่องแลกเปลี่ยนความร้อน |
| Indonesian | penukar panas |
| Korean | 열교환기 |
| Bengali | তাপ বিনিময়কারী |
| Dutch | warmtewisselaar |
| Swedish | värmeväxlare |
| Finnish | lämmönvaihdin |
| Ukrainian | теплообмінник |
Frequently asked questions
What does Heat Exchanger mean in engineering?
A heat exchanger is a device that transfers heat between two or more fluids without mixing them. It is widely used in process plants for heating, cooling, and energy recovery. In Chemical Engineering, the term carries a usage-frequency rating of 10/10 in the Engineering English library.
How do you pronounce Heat Exchanger?
Heat Exchanger is pronounced /hiːt ɪksˈtʃeɪndʒər/ (IPA). The Engineering English app plays audio for the term and checks your pronunciation with speech recognition.
How is Heat Exchanger used in a sentence?
Example from an engineering context: “We selected a shell-and-tube heat exchanger to recover waste heat from the reactor effluent stream.”
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