The heat transfer and resistance performance in heat exchangers using smooth tube (ST), symmetric corrugated tube (SCT), and asymmetric corrugated tube (ACT) with large corrugation fillet radii (rl) are investigated experimentally, and the total heat transfer and resistance performance of the flow directions on ACT are analyzed. The results show that the comprehensive performance of SCT and ACT are more obvious than that of ST, and the heat transfer and resistance performance of SCT and ACT on the shell side are better than those on the tube side. The heat transfer performance of ACT is slightly different from that of SCT, but the resistance performance is lower. The resistance performance of ACT could be reduced significantly when rl located at upstream on tube side or downstream on shell side. The total comprehensive performance of ACT is superior than that of ST by 1.44 times when rl located at upstream on tube side with counter flow, and by 1.39 times when rl located at downstream on tube side with parallel flow. © 2020, Science Press. All right reserved.