An experimental and numerical investigation is performed in the current study to further explore the convective heat transfer performance by a vertically-oriented piezoelectric fan in the presence of channel flow. The effects of velocity ratio and fan tip-to-heated surface clearance are taken into considerations. It is illustrated that the presence of channel flow has an innegligible influence on the vibration amplitudes of the piezoelectric fan under large channel flow velocities. In the presence of channel flow, the vortical structures at the edges of vibrating fan are certainly suppressed, especially under large velocity ratios. On the other hand, the vortical streaming flow mixes with the channel flow to form a long stripe of vortical structure downstream of the fan vibration envelope. Under small velocity ratios, the impingement role of streaming flow along fan tip is still dominated and simultaneously the channel flow passing through the vibration envelope is effectively pulsated. Therefore, combined flows generally produce heat transfer enhancement around the fan vibration envelope related to the pure vibrating fan, especially at a small non-dimensional tip-to-surface gap. While under large velocity ratios, the impingement role of streaming flow induced by a vibrating fan is seriously weakened by the strong channel flow. The convective heat transfer produced by combined flows in the fan vibration envelope is generally reduced in comparison with pure piezoelectric fan. Related to the pure channel flow, the combined flows effectively improve the convective heat transfer, especially downstream of the fan vibration envelope. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.