This paper presents the influences of main parameters of longitudinal vortex generator (LVG) on the heat transfer enhancement and flow resistance in a rectangular channel. The parameters include the location of LVG in the channel, geometric sizes and shape of LVG. Numerical results show that the overall Nusselt number of channel will decrease with the LVGs' location away from the inlet of the channel; and decrease too with the space between the LVG pair decreased. The location of LVG has no significant influence on the total pressure drop of channel. With the area of LVG increased, the average Nusselt number and the flow loss penalty of channel, especially when beta = 45 degrees will increase. With the area of LVG fixed, increasing the length of rectangular winglet pair vortex generator will bring about more heat transfer enhancement and less flow loss increase than that increasing the height of rectangular winglet pair vortex generator. With the same area of LVG, delta winglet pair is more effective than rectangular winglet pair on heat transfer enhancement of channel, and delta winglet pair-b is more effective than delta winglet pair-a. Delta winglet pair-a results in a higher pressure drop, the next is rectangular winglet pair and the last is delta winglet-b. The increase of heat transfer enhancement is always accompanied with the decrease of field synergy angle between the velocity and temperature gradient when the parameters of LVG are changed. This confirms again that the field synergy is the fundamental mechanism of heat transfer by longitudinal vortex. The laminar heat transfer of the channel with punched delta winglet pair is experimentally and numerically studied in the present paper. The numerical result for the average heat transfer coefficient of the channel agrees well with the experimental result, indicating the reliability of the present numerical predictions. (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd.