  Stellar oscillations are excited in non-synchronously rotating stars in
binary systems due to the tidal forces. Tangential components of the tides can
drive a shear flow which behaves as a differentially forced rotating structure
in a stratified outer medium. In this paper we show that our single-layer
approximation for the calculation of the forced oscillations yields results
that are consistent with the predictions for the synchronization timescales in
circular orbits. In addition, calibrating our model results to fit Zahn's
relationship between synchronization timescales and orbital separation, we are
able to constrain the value of the kinematical viscosity parameter. For the
4Mo+5Mo binary modeled in this paper, the kinematical viscosity is in the range
0.0015 -- 0.0043 Ro^2/d for orbital periods in the range 2.5 -- 25 d.
Furthermore, the energy dissipation rate due to the shear flow is found to
decrease by ~2 orders of magnitude as synchronization is approached, implying
that binary systems may approach synchronization relatively quickly but that it
takes a much longer timescale to actually attain this condition. Our model can
be used to calculate the energy dissipation rates throughout the orbital cycle
for arbitrary values of eccentricity and stellar rotational velocity. We
suggest that the asymmetric distribution of energy dissipation over the stellar
surface may lead to the appearance of localized regions of enhanced surface
activity.
