The laminar air flow in a pipe is studied with application of multiple magnetic fields at the point of uniform heat flux heating from the wall as the first boundary conditions. As the second boundary condition, after a coil, uniform heat flux heating and then uniform heat flux cooling from the wall is applied. Numerical computations are successfully carried out by solving transient 2-D equations with pressure gradient boundary condition for three lengths of pipe and two boundary conditions. The first one is for a ratio of pipe length and diameter L = 10 with a single electric coil. The second one is for L = 20 with two electric coils and the third one is for L = 30 with three electric coils to generate the magnetic field. A parameter is from 0 to 2 x 10(7), which represents the strength of the magnetic field and the uniform heat flux from the pipe wall. The results show that the volume flow rate increases with the strength of magnetic field. Magnetic fields generated by the multicoils can drive the air flow in the corresponding longer pipe almost equally to the shorter one with a single coil. From the distributions of the cross-sectional magnetic force along the pipe length, the effect of pressure, pressure gradient distribution along the pipe length, and the effect of gradient magnetic field and temperature field on the overall air flow rate can be analyzed and compared on the effect of wall cooling. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.