Abstract

We investigate the fluid flow through a finite length, axisymmetric tube when the elastic wall is subject to either a prescribed external pressure or a prescribed motion. The prescribed wall forcing is assumed to consist of a forward travelling wave together with a reflected travelling wave. The dimensionless diameter variation of the tube is taken to be small and perturbation techniques are used to solve the weakly non-linear problem. Particular attention is given to the steady streaming flow that is induced through the non-linear convective acceleration terms. The results are applied to the flow of blood in the umbilical vein (UV), which has important physiological implications.