This paper presents a detailed review of the research carried out for the design of flat fin heat exchangers is using theoretical, experimental, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. The scope and limitations of several studies are presented, as well as the critical point of view of the authors in the selection of optimal methods in the thermo-hydraulic design of each equipment. Fin heat exchangers optimization is done using different approaches. The theoretical model assumes considerations that do not fully replicate the phenomenon, the experimental method provides real parameters for the design and implies high costs, and finally, computational fluid dynamics predicts the behaviors of thermal and hydraulic machine flows, in addition to recreating the phenomena almost exactly and complement the theoretical and experimental methods. With this review, it can be verified that the methods complement each other, thus achieving greater profitability at the industrial level, greater robustness in the design, and facilitating the study of behavior from a thermo-hydraulic approach.

For the validation of the software that performs the calculation of temperature profiles in cooling fins (ProfileFins) a rectangular fin heat sink was used, which was supplied with heat in order to be able to correctly measure the temperature variation in different air flow conditions and thus be able to realize our frontier conditions to obtain the temperature profile in a theoretical way and also to have the parameters to use in the software to be validated. Thus, the software presents a very acceptable margin of error concerning the theoretical calculation.