Abstract: A header plate, which forms one wall of the internal space of a fluid header for a cooling radiator for air used in supercharging a motor vehicle engine, has apertures through which the fluid flow tubes of the heat exchanger extend. These apertures are formed in an elongated flat region of the header plate, which is joined to raised side flanges through respective curved regions. The material of the header plate is press-formed, on the same side as the concavity of these curved regions, in zones which are aligned in the transverse direction of the header plate and which extend over at least the whole length of arc of each of the curved regions. The deformation resulting from this press-forming operation causes local thickening of the material, which reinforces the plate in its curved regions and inhibits any tendency to fracture along the generatrices of the curved regions due to mechanical and thermal stresses encountered in operation.

Abstract: A heat exchanger comprises a bundle of tubes connected between two water boxes, each of the latter being delimited by a wall of moulded plastics material having two opposed, lateral faces on which are secured lateral portions of two mountings which join the two water boxes together and which enclose the tube bundle between them. Each water box is secured to each mounting by means of at least one self-tapping screw which passes through an aperture formed in a lateral portion of the mounting and which engages in a bore formed in the wall of the water box.