This study investigates the use of global sensitivity analysis (GSA) and harmony search (HS) algorithm for design optimization of air cooled heat exchangers (ACHEs) from the economic viewpoint. In order to reduce the size of the optimization problem, GSA is performed to examine the effect of the design parameters and to identify the non-influential parameters. Then HS is applied to optimize influential parameters. To demonstrate the ability of the HS algorithm a case study is considered and for validation purpose, genetic algorithm (GA) is also applied to this case study. Results reveal that the HS algorithm converges to optimum solution with higher accuracy in comparison with GA. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.