FIELD: heat engineering. SUBSTANCE: used in shell-and-tube heat exchangers. A shell-and-tube heat exchanger of a rigid design, containing a cylindrical body with inlet and outlet pipes for the heating coolant, with tube sheets welded at the ends of the body and straight tubes fixed in the holes of the tube sheets, chambers for the supply and outlet of the heated coolant, fixed on the tube sheets, and the body is made of two cylindrical parts of different diameters so that one part of the body is inserted into the other with an overlap and with a radial gap, and in the gap between the parts of the body there is a cylindrical compensator ring with a wall thickness equal to the radial gap and a width equal to the overlap of the body parts, fixed at one end with one part of the body, and at the other end fixed with another part of the body, and the temperature coefficient of linear expansion of the material of the compensator ring is greater than the temperature coefficient of linear expansion of the body material. EFFECT: elimination of additional thermal stresses arising from different thermal expansion of the housing and tube bundle, reducing power loads during operation of the device. 1 cl, 1 dwg.