Peristaltic motion

Abstract

The study of the flow of an incompressible viscous liquid is greatly simplified if discussion is limited to Stokes flow in which the Reynolds number is small enough for the non-linear inertia forces to be neglected in comparison with the viscous forces so that the equations of motion become linear. The Stokes flow approximation is a suitable model to take for peristaltic motion since the velocities met in practice are small and conditions at infinity are not considered. In this thesis, two dimensional flow through a symmetrical channel and axially symmetric flow through a pipe of circular cross-section are considered. In each case the boundary varies sinusoidally.