Marine Heat Exchangers for Commercial Vessels
Shell and tube coolers, charge air coolers, plate and oil coolers, and complete cooling skids for tugs, workboats and ships. Built to your drawing or old unit, supplied and installed by VTS Marine.
Send a nameplate photo and dimensions and we will size the replacement.
Heat exchangers we supply
Every unit is designed for its duty: flow, temperatures, pressure, fluids and the space it has to fit. Standard sizes and fully custom builds are both available.
Shell and tube heat exchangers
The workhorse for engine jacket water, lube oil, gearbox oil and seawater cooling. Simple, reliable and easy to open up and clean. Also built as condensers and heaters.
Tube and fin air coolers
Charge air coolers and air coolers for marine diesel engines, compressors and generators. More than 30% more heat transfer than a shell and tube unit of the same size.
Plate heat exchangers
Compact central coolers for seawater to fresh water systems. Gasketed units open up for cleaning and can be extended with extra plates. Stainless steel or titanium plates.
Plate fin oil coolers
Light, compact aluminium coolers for hydraulic oil, deck machinery and engine-driven equipment where weight and space matter.
Seawater cooling skids
Complete skid-mounted cooling modules with coolers, valves, piping and gauges, pre-assembled and tested so installation is a drop-in job.
Lube oil cooling systems
Packaged lube oil units with tank, pumps, filters and cooler for main engines, gearboxes and compressors.
Air-to-water coolers
Fan-assisted air to water coolers for transformers and electrical spaces on board.
Heaters
Steam and hot water heaters for fuel oil, lube oil and fresh water, in carbon or stainless steel.
Where they work on board
- Main and auxiliary engine jacket water cooling
- Engine and gearbox lube oil cooling
- Charge air cooling on turbocharged diesels
- Central seawater to fresh water cooling
- Hydraulic oil for winches, cranes and steering
- Air compressors and HVAC
- Fuel oil heating
- Transformer and switchboard cooling
Materials
- Carbon steel shells and frames
- Stainless steel 304, 304L, 316 and 316L
- Titanium tubes and plates for seawater service
- Copper tubes and fins for air coolers
- Aluminium for plate fin coolers
- Other alloys to suit the fluid and class requirement
Not sure which material your seawater side needs? Tell us the vessel, the fluid and the old unit’s material and we will recommend one.
Built to code and class
Our heat exchangers are made by Hubei Youcheng Thermal Equipment, a specialist heat exchanger manufacturer in Daye, Hubei, China, founded in 2016. Design, manufacturing and testing are carried out under ISO 9001 control, by welders certified to international standards.
- ASME Section VIII Div. 1 (U stamp)
- National Board registered
- PED 2014/68/EU
- GB/T 151
- TR CU 010/032
- ISO 9001:2015
- ISO 14001:2015
- ISO 45001:2018
Products have been surveyed and certified for ships by ABS, DNV, Lloyd’s Register, RINA and China Classification Society. If your vessel needs a class certificate with the cooler, tell us at the quote stage.
How ordering works
- Send us the details. A photo of the nameplate, overall dimensions, connection sizes, and the engine or system it serves. A drawing or datasheet is even better.
- We size and quote. Thermal design is done in HTRI and strength calculations in PV Elite (ASME), so the new unit matches or beats the old one and fits the same space.
- Build and test. Units are hydrostatically tested before shipping, and material certificates are available.
- Install. VTS Marine technicians remove the old unit and fit the new one at the dock or boat yard, and get the system back in service.
Manufacturing capacity
| Factory area | 15,000 m² |
|---|---|
| Staff | 85 to 100 |
| Engineering team | 10+ heat exchanger engineers, including 3 senior engineers |
| Design tools | HTRI, PV Elite, SW6, SolidWorks, Fluent |
| Equipment | Fibre laser cutting, CNC machining centres, CNC vertical lathes, plate rolling, radial drilling, automatic tube-to-tubesheet welding |
Heat exchanger questions
Can you replace a cooler that is no longer made?
Yes. Send us the dimensions, connections and duty of the old unit and we can build a replacement to fit the same space and piping, even if the original maker is gone.
Do you build to our own drawing?
Yes. Units are built to customer drawings or designed from scratch to your requirements, in accordance with ASME VIII Div. 1, GB/T 151, PED and other standards.
Shell and tube or plate: which should I choose?
Shell and tube units handle higher pressures, dirty water and fouling better and are easy to clean. Plate units are smaller and more efficient but have narrow channels that can scale or clog. For raw seawater on a working vessel, shell and tube is usually the safer choice.
Can you supply a class certificate?
Units can be supplied with certification from ABS, DNV, Lloyd’s Register, RINA or CCS. Let us know the class society when you request a quote.
Do you install as well as supply?
Yes. VTS Marine is a mobile marine service company. Our technicians install heat exchangers at the dock or boat yard across the Lower Mainland and travel to vessels in remote locations.
Get a heat exchanger quote
Send the nameplate photo, dimensions and what the unit cools. We will come back with a size, price and lead time.
See also our commercial tug and ship repair, marine diesel engine repair and marine gearbox services.