An analytical characterization of the heat transfer in an oscillating flow through a porous medium is presented in this work. Based on a two-equation model, two important dimensionless parameters are identified as the ratio of the thermal capacities between the solid and fluid phases and the ratio of the interstitial heat conductance between the phases to the fluid thermal capacity. The analytic solutions are obtained for both the fluid and solid temperature variations, and the heat transfer characteristics between the phases are classified into four regimes. In addition, a criterion for the validity of the local thermal equilibrium is suggested in a simple form as the ratio of the two time scales intrinsically involved in any transient heat transfer in porous media, namely the time scale relevant to the thermal inertia of porous media and the time scale pertinent to the transient variation of the boundary condition. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.