A two-dimensional cross-flow tube bank heat exchanger arrangement problem with internal laminar flow is considered in this work. The objective is to optimize the arrangement of tubes and find the most favorable geometries, in order to simultaneously maximize the rate of heat exchange while obtaining a minimum pressure loss. A systematic study was performed involving a large number of simulations. The global optimization method NSGA-II was retained. A fully automatized in-house optimization environment was used to solve the problem, including mesh generation and CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulations. The optimization was performed in parallel on a Linux cluster with a very good speed-up. The main purpose of this article is to illustrate and analyze a heat exchanger arrangement problem in its most general form and to provide a fundamental understanding of the structure of the Pareto front and optimal geometries. The considered conditions are particularly suited for low-power applications, as found in a growing number of practical systems in an effort toward increasing energy efficiency. For such a detailed analysis with more than 140 000 CFD-based evaluations, a design-of-experiment study involving a response surface would not be sufficient. Instead, all evaluations rely on a direct solution using a CFD solver. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.