Abstract
Peristaltic flows are important for understanding the transport of fluids, especially blood flow, in physiological systems and in biomedical instruments. Several studies have considered the peristaltic flows of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids with one or more simplifying assumptions, and for peristaltic flows in biomechanics applications such as magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) pumps and blood flow. This paper presents a theoretical study of the effects of slip conditions and wall properties on the MHD peristaltic flow of a viscous fluid filling the porous space in a channel. The heat transfer analysis is also presented. The analytical solutions of the stream function, velocity and temperature distributions are constructed in closed form under long wavelength and low Reynolds number approximations. The effects of various influential key parameters and groups are reported and discussed. (C) 2010 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.