Abstract: Centrifugal buoyancy arising from radial temperature gradient of fluid has a great influence on the enhanced heat transfer performance of swirling flow. An experimental comparative investigation on the influence of centrifugal buoyancy on the heat transfer enhancement of swirling flow was carried out via exchanging hot and cool water in shell-side and tube-side respectively in a swirling flow tube-shell heat exchanger，in which heat transfer was enhanced by spiral fluted tubes and rod baffles. The results showed that the total heat transfer coefficient of heat exchanger with hot water arranged in shell-side was relatively higher by 33% than that with hot water arranged in tube-side. Therefore，the influence of centrifugal buoyancy on the heat transfer performance of tube-shell heat exchanger with swirling flow was not negligible. Furthermore，the influence of centrifugal buoyancy on the performance of heat transfer was more distinct in the case of swirling flow existing in the side of larger thermal resistance.