An oil cooler  is designed to remove excessive heat from the oil used to lubricate vehicles, machinery and mechanical equipment. For example, a hot engine transfers heat to the oil which then circulates through a heat-exchanger (also known as an oil cooler), using either air or water to cool the oil.

It achieves this by using a cooling medium – usually either air or water – to transfer heat from the oil and to the cooling medium. It does this without either the oil or cooling medium coming into direct contact with each other.

For example, an air cooled oil cooler often looks like a small car radiator and achieves its purpose by running the oil through finned tubes. The incoming air passes over and around the tubes, removing heat as it passes through.

For many applications, air cooling isn’t appropriate and here water cooling is the solution. Shell and tube oil coolers are very popular, the coolant flowing through the central ‘tube core’, whilst the oil flows around and through the tubes, providing extremely efficient heat transfer.

Bowman manufacture a wide range of water cooled shell and tube oil coolers for torque converters, automatic transmission and engine oils. Find out more about Bowman Oil Coolers.