We present for the first time numerical results for the particle (photon) creation rate of Dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) radiation in a resonant cylindrical microwave cavity. Based on recent experimental proposals, we model an irradiated semiconducting diaphragm (SCD) using a time dependent 'plasma sheet' where we show that the number of photons created for the TM_{011} mode is considerably enhanced even for low laser powers (of microjoule order). Conversely to the moving mirror case, we also show that the fundamental TM mode (TM_{010}) is not excited for an irradiated plasma sheet. We show that polarization (arising due to the back reaction of pair created photons with the plasma SCD) implies losses for TM, but not TE modes. However, we argue that these losses can be reduced by lowering the laser power and shortening the relaxation time. The results presented here lead support to the idea that TE and, in particular, TM modes are well suited to the detection of DCE radiation in a cylindrical cavity.