Peristaltic motion of a non-Newtonian fluid

Summary To understand theoretically the flow properties of physiological fluids, we have considered as a model the peristaltic motion of a power law fluid in a tube, with a sinusoidal wave of small amplitude travelling down its wall. The solution for the stream function is obtained as a power series in terms of the amplitude of the wave. The stream function and the velocity components are evaluated by solving numerically two point boundary value problems with a singular point at the origin. The influence of the applied pressure gradient along with non-Newtonian parameters on the streamlines and velocity profiles are discussed in detail.