A compressible large eddy simulation (LES) is performed to study a pulsed jet actuator that is used to control a turbulent axisymmetric bluff body wake. The actuator is driven at low-frequency ($f = 200$Hz, $S{t_\theta } = 0.029$) and high amplitude (${C_\mu } = 0.034$). The numerical scheme and a suitable boundary condition for the pulsed jet are validated, showing good agreement with experimental results. A comparison of the velocity boundary condition and the moving boundary condition shows that, in the vicinity of the orifice/slot and in the downstream region, the results from these two methods are identical, while the fluid behaviour inside the cavity shows difference. An analysis of the pulsed jet actuator shows that the phase lag of the cavity pressure is determined by the integration of the diaphragm motion and the pulsed jet. The mean total pressure distribution shows that the total pressure loss is concentrated in the vicinity of the slot. Dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) on the pressure field is used to extract coherent structures which oscillate with the same frequency as that of the diaphragm motion. Some small-scale high-frequency structures are also apparent.

The aerodynamic drag of simplified car geometry with small span and strongly separatedwake can be reduced up 20% by using pulsed jet distributed along the rear window. Resultsshow an enhancement of transversal wake size in the control region, a displacement of themean positions of vortex wake structures, a decrease of velocities near the rear part anda reduction of vortex structure recirculation in the wake. These modifications produced bythe control are analyzed, commented and model based on simple strategy to build efficientand suitable separation control strategy is proposed.