The excitation source of flow-induced acoustic resonances in closed side-branches is characterized experimentally for circular pipes excited by turbulent flow in the main pipe. The shear layer at the branch junction is modeled by an unsteady complex source which is dependent on the Strouhal number and the acoustic particle velocity at the shear layer. The amplitude and phase of this source are determined experimentally and presented in the form of a dimensionless complex source term. This determined shear layer source term and the acoustic description of the piping system are then combined in a semi-empirical model to predict the frequency and pulsation amplitude of flowexcited acoustic resonance. The model results exemplify important experimental observations of flow excited side-branch resonances; including the occurrence of the lock-in phenomenon, the excitation of resonance by the single and double vortex modes of the shear layer, and nonlinear saturation at large pulsation amplitude due to vortex damping. The dependence of the pulsation amplitude on the Strouhal number, the static test pressure and on friction and radiation losses is also reproduced by the model. Finally, the effect of the acoustic particle velocity distribution at the branch junction on the shear layer source term is quantified.