[tehwalrus]

it says it uses a Rankine Vortex[1] where a substantial amount of the velocity profile is zero - thus it doesn't "disturb carbonation". As others have pointed out, this is exactly what a lot of other "fast chill" tech already does.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_vortex

[leephillips]

It says that, but the flow inside the can will be three-dimensional and not well modeled by the Rankine vortex. And no, the Rankine velocity profile is nowhere zero.

This gadget exploits a common technique for enhancing heat transfer; another example are pipes designed to transport fluid while also causing it to come to thermal equilibrium with the environment as quickly as possible: these pipes sometimes feature rifling which spins the fluid as it flows through them.

If this doesn't lead to carbonation explosions it's because the spinning is not very fast and doesn't lead to much shear.

In short, this is very well understood, in fact utterly routine, technology.

EDIT: On second thought the combined canned fluid + bath fluid together might roughly be considered Rankine-like; this might be what they mean. In that case the fluid inside the can would be in (very roughly) solid-body motion, which implies little agitation (shear).

[tehwalrus]

apologies about the error - wiki article says the "remaining components" are zero, which means there's something that isn't, my bad.

Yes, that's what I read - two different domains with independent (or nearly independent?) flow, which means you could design it carefully to avoid a lot of shear in the centre - which is (on a skim reading) roughly what a Rankine vortex is.