Peristaltic motion of a third-order fluid in a planar channel

In order to determine the characteristics of the peristaltic transport of shear thinning non-Newtonian materials, the motion of a third-order fluid in a planar channel having walls that are transversely displaced by an infinite, harmonic traveling wave of large wavelength and negligibly small Reynolds number was analyzed using a perturbation expansion in terms of a variant of the Deborah number. Within the range of validity of this analysis, we found the pumping rate of a shear-thinning fluid is less than that for a Newtonian fluid having a shear viscosity the same as the lower-limiting viscosity of the nonNewtonian material. Also, the space of variables for which trapping of a bolus of fluid occurs is reduced for the shear-thinning fluid investigated here.