This paper describes an experimental study of heat transfer in oscillating flow inside a cylindrical tube. Profiles of temperature are taken inside the wall and in the fluid from an instrumented test rig, in different conditions of oscillating flow. Profiles obtained allow the observation of the wall effect on heat transfer. A method using the inverse heat conduction principle allows the characterization of local heat transfers at the fluid-solid interface. Finally, a comparison between global and local approaches of heat transfer shows the difficulty of defining a dimensionless heat flux density to model local heat transfer in oscillating flow. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.