Abstract <p>This study deals with the feasibility of active temperature control with a pulsating flow for various industrial applications such as thermal devices and many kinds of manufacturing for further improvements of their performance and product quality. The authors focus on the heat transfer characteristics on the flat plate installed in a pulsating duct flow. In our past experiments, heat transfer enhancement by flow pulsation was confirmed when flow was supplied with non-uniform velocity distribution at the inlet. However, discussions based on the spatial data of flow and temperature fields were insufficient. Therefore, visualization of thermal boundary layer was carried out, and also numerical analysis was performed as qualitative and quantitative evaluations of flow and temperature fields around the flat plate, respectively. Results showed that heat transfer enhancement under non-uniform inflow conditions was attributed to the increase of local flow rate near the flat plate induced by the periodical flow field fluctuations temporally and spatially.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>