This paper deals with the fluidic actuators in the pulsed mode used in turbulent boundary layer control, in particular as vortex generator (VG) in order to delay separation. Recently the study by Kostas et al (2007) has shown the importance of the transient phase of the VG actuators. In particular, an enhancement of the vortex-generation mechanism has been observed during the transient period, that is responsible for an increase of turbulence stress levels up to 200% relatively to the non actuated case. A large dependency of the exit velocity on the physical characteristic of the feed tube has been detected. This dependency suggests that a precise quantification of the pulsed jet dynamic during the transient period is necessary. In this work the transient behavior of the fluidic actuators used by Kostas et al (2007) is analyzed and experimented. A model is developed to explain the dynamics of the flow inside the actuator. On the whole, experiments show that the role of all physical parameters is consistent with the foreseen properties. The results obtained help to separate the input dynamic of the controller from the controlled flow. Another perspective of this work is to provide a guide for the design of fluidic actuators.

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