Investigation on the flow field characteristics of a highly underexpanded pulsed plasma jet

Abstract

In recent years, significant progress has been made in modeling turbulence behavior in plasma and its effect on transport. It has also been made in diagnostics for turbulence measurement; however, there is still a large gap between theoretical model and experimental measurements. Visualization of turbulence can improve the connection to theory and validation of the theoretical model. One method to visualize the flow structures in plasma is a laser Schlieren imaging technique. We have recently applied this technique and investigated the characteristics of a highly underexpanded pulsed plasma jet originating from an electrothermal capillary source. Measurements include temporally resolved laser Schlieren imaging of a precursor blast wave. Analysis on the trajectory of the precursor blast wave shows that it does not follow the scaling expected for a strong shock resulting from the instantaneous deposition of energy at a point. However, the shock velocity does scale as the square root of the deposited energy, in accordance with the point deposition approximation.