A study on peristaltic flow and nanofluid in medication delivery systems considering heat transfer

Abstract This study uses analytical and numerical approaches to explore nanofluid peristaltic flow and heat transfer in drug delivery systems. Low Reynolds numbers are used to examine the study using long-wavelength approximations. Along the channel, the walls are distributed sinusoidally. The current issue is resolved by using analytical and numerical methods, and solutions are obtained for the temperature profile, axial velocity, volume flow rate, pressure gradient, stream function, and Nusselt number. The influence of several physical factors on the temperature, velocity profile, and trapping phenomena is shown. These parameters include the thermal and basic-density Grashof numbers and the Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameters. Along the channel, streamlines and Nusselt number variations are also displayed. The axial velocity profile is shown to be greatly reduced when the thermal Grashof number rises, but it increases as the species Grashof number rises. Specifically, the axial velocity increased by 50% with the increase of the species Grashof number from 0.1 to 1, but the thermal Grashof decreased by 33% with the same amount of change. Compared to Newtonian fluids, nanofluids tend to reduce backflow and also exhibit a significant rise in pressure differential, indicating that they are a more practical fluid for use in medical pumps for drug delivery systems. With the increase in Brownian motion and thermophoretic parameters, the Nusselt number decreased sharply. Changing these parameters from 0.1 to 4 brought the Nusselt number to about 10% of its initial value. Also, the increase in these parameters leads to an increase in temperature and a decrease in fluid velocity.