  The von-Karman plasma experiment is a novel versatile experimental device
designed to explore the dynamics of basic magnetic induction processes and the
dynamics of flows driven in weakly magnetized plasmas. A high-density plasma
column (10^16 - 10^19 particles.m^-3) is created by two radio-frequency plasma
sources located at each end of a 1 m long linear device. Flows are driven
through JxB azimuthal torques created from independently controlled emissive
cathodes. The device has been designed such that magnetic induction processes
and turbulent plasma dynamics can be studied from a variety of time-averaged
axisymmetric flows in a cylinder. MHD simulations implementing
volume-penalization support the experimental development to design the most
efficient flow-driving schemes and understand the flow dynamics. Preliminary
experimental results show that a rotating motion of up to nearly 1 km/s is
controlled by the JxB azimuthal torque.
