Heat Transfer. 2020;1–14. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/htj © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC | 1 Received: 21 March 2020 | Revised: 12 August 2020 | Accepted: 18 August 2020 DOI: 10.1002/htj.21928 RESEARCH ARTICLE Effect of geometrical parameters on thermal efficiency and fuel consumption of heaters of a natural gas pressure reduction station using Sobol statistical sensitivity analysis Seyed Alireza Mostafavi | Moein Taheri Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Arak University, Arak, Iran Correspondence Seyed Alireza Mostafavi, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Arak University, Arak, Iran. Email: a-mostafavi@araku.ac.ir Abstract The main objective of natural gas pressure reduction station or city gate stations (CGSs) is to adjust gas pressure within a standard range for home usage. CGSs usually utilize heaters for pressure tuning, which generally consume a considerable amount of energy. In this paper, the effect of six influential parameters, namely, the length of gas‐coil, the dia- meter of gas‐coil, the radius of heater shell, length of heater shell, fire tube diameter, and length, on the amount of fuel consumption and thermal efficiency is investigated using Sobol statistical sensitivity analysis. The results show that gas‐coil length and diameter are not effective in fuel consumption and thermal effi- ciency. In contrast, increasing the heater shell radius, heater shell length, and fire tube radius has the same effect as they cause a linear increase in fuel con- sumption. According to results taken from Sobol analysis, they similarly have an influence of 19%–23% on fuel consumption and 21%–22% on thermal effi- ciency. Finally, it was revealed that the effect of fire tube length on fuel consumption and thermal effi- ciency of the heater was 37% and 35%, respectively. KEYWORDS geometrical parameters, heaters, pressure reduction station, sensitivity analysis, thermal efficiency