Abstract: In a vertically oscillating circular cylindrical container, singular perturbation theory of two-time scale expansions was developed in inviscid fluids to investigate the motion of single free surface standing wave including the effect of surface tension. A nonlinear slowly varying amplitude equation, which incorporates cubic nonlinear term, external excitation and the influence of surface tension, was derived from potential flow equation. The results show that, when forced frequency is lower, the effect of surface tension on mode selection of surface wave is not important. However, when forced requency is higher, the surface tension can not be neglected. This proved that the surface tension causes free surface returning to equilibrium location. In addition, due to considering the effect of surface tension, the theoretical result approaches to experimental results much more than that of no surface tension.

Key words: vertically forced oscillation, nonlinear amplitude equation, surface tension, surface wave modes