Imposed pressure driven flow in peristalsis

Abstract

Peristaltic transport phenomena are of great significance in biological sciences. The physiological transport of fluid takes place under the action of peristalsis generated as a pressure gradient. The peristaltic waves generate a pressure gradient which is responsible for the fluid flow in the forward direction. The further properties of this phenomena can be seen if an imposed pressure gradient is applied in addition to the one appearing due to peristaltic waves. This situation has not been discussed in the literature that needs further attention. The effects of the wavy boundaries and imposed pressure on the velocity of the flow field are analyzed. Here we impose a question: what happens if an imposed pressure gradient is also applied? This question of physical importance has not been addressed; and thus, remains the topic of this study. In previous papers of peristaltic motion, the flow generated by peristaltic waves only has been examined while in this study we will discuss the contribution of imposed pressure gradient on velocity field. The analytical results for the velocity field are obtained using the boundary perturbation method. The study shows that the impact of the wavy boundaries on the flow increases with the increase in corrugation parameter and imposed pressure.