Investigation on heat transfer performance of a novel active method heat sink to maximize the efficiency of thermal energy storage systems

•Design a modern heat sink used as an active method in accompanies with the passive method advantages to maximize the efficiency of thermal energy storage systems.•The composition of high voltage and ground electrodes in two sides of fins was the best configuration for heat transfer enhancement in the heat sink.•The generation of additional fluid motion by electrodes led to excellent temperature distribution and heat transfer.•Increasing the applied voltage had an improving effect on heat transfer until 20 kV.•The buoyancy body force in joining with coulomb body force improved the effect of using the EHD technique.•Using an electrical field on the fins increased the fluid flow, and transfers the trapped heat farther from them. In this work, a novel electric-body-force-equipped heat sink was investigated to determine the effect of the electric field on the heat sink performance. To introduce the optimal composition of the heat sink and electric field, different fin lengths of the heat sink with various arrangements of electrodes were investigated. Increasing the length of fins improves the transferred heat to a certain extent, but the results of this study show that using the electric field has decreased the limitation of this range. Using an electric field on the fins with several applied voltage levels and heat flux rates demonstrated that increasing the applied voltage had an improving effect on heat transfer until 20 kV, and the maximum efficiency occurred on heat flux of 800(W·m−2). The composition of high voltage and ground electrodes in two sides of fins was the best configuration for heat transfer enhancement in the heat sink. Employing this arrangement could transfer the trapped heat farther from fins by maximum creation of fluid flow near the surface of them. This modern heat sink can be used as an active method in accompany with the passive method advantages to maximize the efficiency of sensible heat energy storage systems.