Instead of the traditional trial-and-error process, a genetic algorithm (GA) is successfully applied to thermal design of fin-and-tube heat exchangers (FTHEs). The design method uses a GA to search and optimize structure sizes of FTHEs. The minimum total weight or total annual cost of FTHEs is taken as the objective function in the GA, respectively. Seven design parameters are varied for the optimization objectives. The implementation of the design method consists of a GA routine and a thermal design routine. In the GA routine, binary coding for tournament selection, uniform crossover and one-point mutation is adopted. In the thermal design routine, thermal design of the FTHE is carried out according to the conditions of the structure sizes that the genetic algorithm generated, and the log-mean temperature difference method is used to determine the heat transfer area under the combined structure sizes for a given heat duty. Optimization shows that it is possible to achieve a great reduction in cost or weight, whenever such objectives have been chosen for minimization. The method is universal and may be used for thermal design and optimization of FTHEs under different specified duties.