In this paper, a comparative study is performed to check the nozzle geometry and arrangement effects on impinging jets heat transfer performance to help the design of a ground fast cooling simulation device which is used for the thermal tests of high speed flight vehicles. Based on the simplified physical model, the impinging jets heat transfer is modeled using the shear-stress transport (SST) k-omega turbulence model. A total of 21 different nozzle configurations including 7 geometries are considered in the numerical simulation. Heat transfer performances concerning heat transfer intensity and heat flux uniformity in different cases are compared with each other. Analysis is given on the corresponding flow fields and surface heat flux distributions. To help the optimization of nozzle geometry and arrangement in designing the device, an indicator named QU ratio is proposed for the overall performance evaluation of the nozzle configurations. The effectiveness of the QU ratio is validated based on the numerical results and it can be used to help determine the best design for certain given conditions of the ground fast cooling device. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.