The gliding arc can offer high energy efficiency and selectivity for chemical reactions and has been widely applied in material processing, environmental protection and other industrial areas. But the discharge properties, measurement of plasma parameters and related physical pro- cesses of the gliding arc discharge still need to further studied. In this study, the gliding arc was driven by the transverse magnetic field to produce the non-equilibrium plasma at high pressure. The parameters of the plasma at our observed point were measured by optical methods. The experimental result shows that the electron temperature is about 0.6 eV and the heavy particle temperature is approximately 2987±250 K.
A generator of the gliding arc jet （GAJ）, which is driven by a transverse magnetic field, is developed to produce non-equilibrium plasma at atmospheric pressure. The gas temperature is estimated using the spectrum of OH radicals to be about 2400±400 K. The determinations of electron temperature and electron density by using a line-ratio method are elaborated for the gliding arc jet plasma. This line-ratio method is based on a collisional-radiative model. The experiment results show that electron temperature is about 1.0 eV and electron density is about 6.9×1014 cm-3 . Obviously, the plasma of GAJ is in a non-equilibrium state.
