  Be it to aerate a glass of wine before tasting, to accelerate a chemical
reaction or to cultivate cells in suspension, the "swirling" (or orbital
shaking) of a container ensures good mixing and gas exchange in an efficient
and simple way. Despite being used in a large range of applications this
intuitive motion is far from being understood and presents a richness of
patterns and behaviors which has not yet been reported. The present research
charts the evolution of the waves with the operating parameters identifying a
large variety of patterns, ranging from single and multiple crested waves to
breaking waves. Free surface and velocity fields measurements are compared to a
potential sloshing model, highlighting the existence of various flow regimes.
Our research assesses the importance of the modal response of the shaken
liquids, laying the foundations for a rigorous mixing optimization of the
orbital agitation in its applications. Copyright (2014) American Institute of
Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use
requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics.
The following article appeared in Physics of Fluids 26, 052104 (2014) and may
be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4874612
