Air-Cooled Heat Exchanger

A type of heat exchanger commonly used in refining, petrochemical, and chemical processing industries to cool different liquid products. Typically, banks of air-cooled heat exchangers move atmospheric ambient air across multiple rows of finned tubes to cool process fluids as they move from one stage of a process to another. Like all heat exchangers, they are often used in situations where a process generates excess heat that cannot be used by the process, so the surplus heat is merely expelled into the atmosphere. Air-cooled heat exchangers are an alternative to other cooling methods that require water as a cooling medium, which makes them useful in locations without water or with limited cooling water resources.

Also known as a Fin Fan Cooler.