Convection and segregation in fluidised granular systems exposed to two-dimensional vibration

Convection and segregation in granular systems not only provide a rich phenomenology of scientifically interesting behaviours but are also crucial to numerous 'real-world' processes ranging from important and widely used industrial procedures to potentially cataclysmic geophysical phenomena. Simple, small-scale experimental or simulated test systems are often employed by researchers in order to gain an understanding of the fundamental physics underlying the behaviours of granular media. Such systems have been the subject of extensive research over several decades, with numerous system geometries and manners of producing excitation explored. Energy is commonly provided to granular assemblies through the application of vibration - the simplicity of the dynamical systems produced and the high degree of control afforded over their behaviour make vibrated granular beds a valuable canonical system by which to explore a diverse range of phenomena. Although a wide variety of vibrated systems have been explored in the existing literature, the vast majority are exposed to vibration along only a single spatial direction. In this paper, we study highly fluidised systems subjected to strong, multi-directional driving, providing a first insight into the dynamics and behaviours of these systems which may potentially hold valuable new information relevant to important industrial and natural processes. With a particular focus on the processes of convection and segregation, we analyse the various states and phase transitions exhibited by our system, detailing a number of previously unobserved dynamical phenomena and system states.