Cooling system for an internal-combustion engine of a motor vehicle comprising a thermostatic valve which contains an electrically heatable expansion element

US5529025A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft · DE

Inventors

• Gunter Ranzinger · Garching bei München, DE
• Gerhart Huemer · Neukeferloh, DE
• Norbert Dembinski · Munich, DE
• Josef Krowiorz · Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, DE
• Jochem Huber · Hersbruck, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Jul 19, 1994
• Grant date: Jun 25, 1996
• Expiry date: Jul 19, 2014

Classification

• Technology area (CPC F): Mechanical Engineering; Lighting; Heating
• CPC primary: F01P2070/04
• WIPO field: Engines, pumps, turbines
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

A cooling system for an internal-combustion engine of a motor vehicle having a radiator and a thermostatic valve by which the temperature of the coolant can be controlled in a warm-up operation, a mixed operation and a radiator operation. The thermostatic valve contains an expansion element which can be electrically heated for reducing the coolant temperature, the expansion element being designed such that the coolant temperature is set without heating the expansion element in the warm-up operation and/or in the mixed operation to an upper working limit temperature. A control unit is provided which, as a function of sensed operating and/or environmental quantities of the internal-combustion engine, activates the heating of the expansion element, as required, in order to shift the operating mode of the cooling system from the warm-up operation or from the mixed operation of the upper working limit temperature in the direction of the mixed operation or radiator operation of a coolant temperature which is lower with respect to the upper working limit temperature.