Direct numerical simulations have been performed for heat and momentum transfer in internally heated turbulent shear flow with constant bulk mean velocity and temperature, $u_{b}$ and $\theta _{b}$ , between parallel, isothermal, no-slip and permeable walls. The wall-normal transpiration velocity on the walls $y=\pm h$ is assumed to be proportional to the local pressure fluctuations, i.e. $v=\pm \beta p/\rho$ (Jiménez et al., J. Fluid Mech., vol. 442, 2001, pp. 89–117). The temperature is supposed to be a passive scalar, and the Prandtl number is set to unity. Turbulent heat and momentum transfer in permeable-channel flow for the dimensionless permeability parameter $\beta u_b=0.5$ has been found to exhibit distinct states depending on the Reynolds number $Re_b=2h u_b/\nu$ . At $Re_{b}\lesssim 10^4$ , the classical Blasius law of the friction coefficient and its similarity to the Stanton number, $St\approx c_{f}\sim Re_{b}^{-1/4}$ , are observed, whereas at $Re_{b}\gtrsim 10^4$ , the so-called ultimate scaling, $St\sim Re_b^0$ and $c_{f}\sim Re_b^0$ , is found. The ultimate state is attributed to the appearance of large-scale intense spanwise rolls with the length scale of $O(h)$ arising from the Kelvin–Helmholtz type of shear-layer instability over the permeable walls. The large-scale rolls can induce large-amplitude velocity fluctuations of $O(u_b)$ as in free shear layers, so that the Taylor dissipation law $\epsilon \sim u_{b}^{3}/h$ (or equivalently $c_{f}\sim Re_b^0$ ) holds. In spite of strong turbulence promotion there is no flow separation, and thus large-amplitude temperature fluctuations of $O(\theta _b)$ can also be induced similarly. As a consequence, the ultimate heat transfer is achieved, i.e. a wall heat flux scales with $u_{b}\theta _{b}$ (or equivalently $St\sim Re_b^0$ ) independent of thermal diffusivity, although the heat transfer on the walls is dominated by thermal conduction.

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