Abstract: A cooling system of an internal combustion engine of a motor vehicle has a cooling circuit, including a coolant/air radiator for cooling the engine, and a heating circuit, including a coolant/air heat exchanger for heating the passenger compartment. The cooling system includes an additional or secondary heater integrally associated with a coolant/air radiator to increase the heating capacity. The problem encountered with modern engines, particularly diesel engines, is that too little heat is available for heating the passenger compartment. Consequently, a secondary heater is needed. The secondary heater, which can be a fuel heater with a burner part and a heat exchanger part, is integrated into the radiator. This arrangement is advantageous in that the burner, with its fuel and exhaust gas line, is located outside the passenger compartment.

Abstract: In vehicles having drive systems with a highly variable degree of heat generation but in which the total quantity of heat generated is small, the heat given off is inadequate to warm the vehicle properly. The cooling system must nevertheless be designed for the worst-possible operating point, i.e. the greatest amount of heat generated, even if it is generated only briefly. It is the purpose of the present development to make the best possibly exergetic use of the available energy sources while ensuring that the drive components are cooled. The air extracted from the passenger compartment (1) comprises a proportion of exhaust air and one of recirculated air, where the recirculated air is heated in the heat exchanger (9) for the cooling circuit (16) of the drive system and taken to the passenger compartment. The system is particularly suitable for electric vehicles, vehicles with hydrogen and hybrid drives and vehicles developing little heat.

Abstract: An electric heating device includes a plurality of heating elements which are assembled to form a block. Such a heating element is formed from two metal plates, with the interposition of PTC elements. In order to increase the heat transfer, the metal plates are provided with corrugation ribs. Each heating element includes a pair of metal plates which are angled off essentially in the form of an L such that the angled-off sections are connected in a frictionally locking manner to each other. The angled-off sections are arranged at opposite ends of the heating elements and angled in opposite directions, the length of the angled-off sections of the metal plates being dimensioned such that angled-off sections of one pair of metal plates are in mutual abutment with angled-off sections of respectively adjacent pairs of metal plates.