Evolution and fluid dynamic effects of pulsed column-shaped plasma

•Localized column-shaped plasma is provided by a 200-ns electrical pulse.•The plasma column afterglow lasts up to 5–6 μs.•The induced high-speed transient flow is captured using PIV and shadowgraphy.•Space-time diagrams of two induced discontinuities are compared with CFD simulations.•∼20% of the total electrical power goes into heat on a sub-microsecond time scale. We study the development, as well as the thermal and fluid dynamic effects of a pulsed column-shaped plasma generated at low pressure using a volume discharge arrangement. The conditions are achieved when the volume discharge contraction leads to pulsed localized deposition of most of the electrical power into a straight plasma column, 24-mm in length. First, we investigate the effect of pressure on the discharge morphology and afterglow evolution using combined electrical measurements and time-resolved streak and image glow recordings. Then we conduct the high-speed shadow imaging and the PIV visualization of the induced post-discharge transient flow that includes a cylindrical shock wave, a rarefaction wave, and a contact surface. The shock wave front expands at a Mach number of 1.4–1.8, as measured on the shadow images. The contact surface, after interacting with the reflected rarefaction wave, stagnates at a radius around 4 mm separating the discharge-heated gas from the shock-heated gas. Finally, we perform 3D CFD simulations to complement the flow visualization experiments and show that, at the present experimental conditions, about 0.12–0.16 J of energy is thermalized on a sub-microsecond time scale within a cylindrical breakdown volume.