Long ducts (or pipes) composed of transpiring (e.g. porous) walls are at the root of numerous industrial devices for species separation, as tangential filtration or membrane desalination. Similar configurations can also be involved in fluid supply systems, as irrigation or biological fluids in capillaries. A transverse leakage (or permeate flux), the strength of which is assumed to depend linearly on local pressure (as in Starling's law for capillary), takes place through permeable walls. All other dependences, as osmotic pressure or partial fouling due to polarization of species concentration, are neglected. To analyse this open problem we consider the simplest situation: the steady laminar flow in a two-dimensional channel composed of two symmetrical porous walls.

First, dimensional analysis helps us to determine the relevant parameters. We then revisit the Berman problem that considers a uniform crossflow (i.e. pressure-independent leakage). We expand the solution in a series of Rt, the transverse Reynolds number. We note this series has a rapid convergence in the considered range of Rt (i.e. Rt ≤ O(1)). A particular method of variable separation then allows us to derive from the Navier–Stokes equations two new ordinary differential equations (ODE), which correspond to first and second orders in the development in Rt, whereas the zero order recovers the Regirer linear theory. Finally, both new ODEs are used to study the occurrence of two undesirable events in the filtration process: axial flow exhaustion (AFE) and crossflow reversal (CFR). This study is compared with a numerical approach.