Fins remain the dominant means of intensifying convective heat transfer, yet the recent expansion of fin geometries — pin, perforated, porous, biomimetic, topology-optimised and adaptive variants alongside the long-standing louvered, wavy and annular families — has outstripped the development of design-selection guidelines. This review consolidates evidence from the recent literature through an application-centred lens. We catalogue the dominant fin types reported for electronics cooling, solar PV and thermal collectors, HVAC and refrigeration heat exchangers, automotive radiators, latent-heat thermal energy storage and gas-turbine blade cooling, together with their performance gains, pressure-drop penalties and operating envelopes. Geometric parameter trends (height, spacing, thickness, aspect ratio) are extracted and the trade-offs that emerge under different binding constraints are made explicit. The synthesis shows that fin selection is best treated as a constraint-satisfaction problem: the dominant fin family in each application is the one that best satisfies the binding constraint (heat flux, pumping power, footprint, manufacturing economics, environmental robustness), not the one with the highest thermal performance in isolation. A six-step practical framework, supported by a literature review table and a look-up table, is presented for engineering use.

This focused review of recent literature on fin geometries supports four conclusions. (i) Fin selection is most accurately treated as a constraint-satisfaction problem rather than a single-objective optimisation. The dominant fin family in each application is the one that best satisfies the binding constraint (heat flux, pumping power, footprint, manufacturing economics, environmental robustness), not the one with the highest thermal performance in isolation. (ii) The four principal geometric parameters — fin height, spacing, thickness and aspect ratio — modulate performance non-monotonically and in application-specific ways (Figs. 1–4). Optima depend on Reynolds number, on the ratio of conduction to convection resistance and on the operating environment. Variable, graded and topology-optimised geometries consistently outperform uniform geometries. (iii) The largest residual gains are likely to come from designs that decouple heat-transfer enhancement from pressure-drop penalty rather than push along the existing Pareto front (Fig. 2). Anisotropic gradient porosity, surface engineering and active enhancement are early instances. The community would benefit from a unified framework for comparing such decoupling mechanisms and from cycle-aware metrics for transient applications. (iv) The six-step framework of Section V and the look-up of Table II provide an engineering-ready tool for fin selection across applications. Combined with the consolidated literature review of Table I they convert what is currently a heterogeneous and largely incommensurable body of evidence into a coherent decision aid.

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