In this present study, attempts were made to investigate the flow and heat transfer characteristics of finned tube with internal fins and external fins by experiment and numerical simulation. The test finned tube was installed in a single smooth tube and formed a shell-and-tube heat exchanger. The experiments were conducted in heat transfer test system with hot air in the tube side and cold air in the shell side. Overall heat transfer coefficients were calculated and heat transfer coefficients in the tube side were determined. Three-dimension computation was performed to predict the flow and heat transfer performance in the finned tube. The effects of external fin height and pitch of the finned tube on shell-side flow and heat transfer were studied by numerical simulation. The numerical results agree well with the measurements. The maximum differences between the present numerical results and the experimental data are approximately 6.9% for heat transfer coefficient and 4.7% for friction factor, respectively. The velocity and temperature fields are obtained to discern the mechanisms of heat transfer enhancement. Numerical results indicate that the steady and spatially periodic growth and disruption of vortices occur in external fin to fin region. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.