In this work, a general method using exergy analysis has been proposed to achieve a compromise between heat transfer effectiveness and pressure loss in heat transfer optimization problems involving internal channels. The proposed method is applied to the design optimization of a channel roughened by staggered arrays of dimples for heat transfer augmentation. Optimization is performed using surrogate-based optimization techniques and three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes analysis. Three nondimensional design variables are defined using the dimpled channel height, dimple print diameter, dimple spacing, and dimple depth. The objective function is defined as the net exergy gain considering the exergy gain by heat transfer, and exergy losses generated by friction and heat transfer. Twenty design points are generated using Latin hypercube sampling, and the Kriging model is used as a surrogate model to approximate the objective function values in the design space. Through optimization, the objective function is successfully improved with respect to the reference geometry. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.