The hydrodynamics and heat transfer characteristics of a heat exchanger with single-helical baffles are studied experimentally as well as numerically. A heat exchanger with two-layer helical baffles is designed by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. The comparisons of the performance of three heat exchangers with single-segment baffles, single-helical baffles and two-layer helical baffles, respectively, are presented in the paper. The experiment is carried out in counter-current flow pattern with hot oil in shell side and cold water in tube side. Overall heat transfer coefficients are calculated and heat transfer coefficients of shell side are determined by Wilson plots technique. It shows that the heat exchangers with helical baffles have higher heat transfer coefficient to the same pressure drop than that of the heat exchanger with segmental baffles based on the present numerical results, and the configuration of the two-layer helical baffles has better integrated performance than that of the single-helical baffles. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.