In the present investigation, second-law based thermodynamics analysis was applied to a new heat exchanger with helical baffles. The helical baffles are designed as quadrant ellipses and each baffle occupies one quadrant of the cross-section of the shell side. Experimental tests were carried out with cold water in the tube side with a constant flow rate, and hot oil on the shell side with flow rate range from 4-24 m(3)/h. The temperatures and pressures for the inlet and outlet of both sides were measured. The heat transfer, pressure drop, entropy generation, and exergy loss of the new heat exchanger were investigated and compared with the results for a conventional shell-and-tube heat exchanger with segmental baffles. The computed results indicated that both the entropy generation number and exergy losses of the new heat exchanger design are lower than those of the heat exchanger with segmental baffles, which means that the novel heat exchanger has a higher efficiency than the heat exchanger with segmental baffles, from the second-law based thermodynamics viewpoint.