Heat exchangers are devices that facilitate the transfer of heat between different fluids, enabling operations such as heating, cooling, boiling, and condensing. They come in various forms, primarily tube and shell or plate types, and their efficiency can vary based on flow arrangements like parallel, counter, or cross flow. Additional methods, such as the log mean temperature difference (LMTD) and the number of transfer units (NTU), are utilized for calculating heat transfer effectiveness in these systems.