Plasma temperature and radial density profiles of the plasma species in a high energy density cutting
arc have been obtained by using a quantitative schlieren technique. A Z-type two-mirror schlieren
system was used in this research. Due to its great sensibility such technique allows measuring
plasma composition and temperature from the arc axis to the surrounding medium by processing the
gray-level contrast values of digital schlieren images recorded at the observation plane for a given
position of a transverse knife located at the exit focal plane of the system. The technique has
provided a good visualization of the plasma flow emerging from the nozzle and its interactions with
the surrounding medium and the anode. The obtained temperature values are in good agreement
with those values previously obtained by the authors on the same torch using Langmuir probes.
