This SAE Recommended Practice is applicable to oil-to-air and oil-to-water oil coolers installed on mobile or stationary equipment and provides a glossary of oil cooler nomenclature. Such oil coolers may be used for the purpose of cooling automatic transmission fluid, hydraulic system oil, retarder system fluid, etc. This document outlines the methods of procuring the test data to determine operating characteristics of the oil cooling system and the interpretation of the results.

The purpose of this document is to provide a procedure for determining the cooling performance characteristics of an oil-to-air and oil-to-water oil coolers under specified operating conditions.