Electromagnetic flow control leading to a strong drag reduction of a sphere

We consider the flow of an electrically conducting fluid around a sphere with some internal source of alternating magnetic field. The resulting electromagnetic forces of this inductive scheme lead to a thrust of the sphere and a changed drag coefficient which balance each other in the self-moved regime. Allowing for a free choice of physically meaningful field distributions, the inverse problem is addressed of looking for such magnetic fields which result in a low drag. Without claiming to have found a global minimum, we present some examples of electromagnetic forces providing strong reductions of the sphere drag. Numerical results up to Re=1000 are given, the corresponding modifications of surface pressure and vorticity are discussed. The energetic balance is not yet analysed as it requires to consider the coupled hydrodynamic and electromagnetic problems.