내연기관 차량의 보조난방용 PTC 소자 및 히터 개발

To enhance the passenger"s thermal comfort in the vehicle cabin with internal combustion engine during cold start, supplementary heating is essential for compensating heating performance. Besides, efficient internal combustion engine vehicles with the low heat source caused by high fuel efficiency are increasing recently. Positive temperature coefficient (PTC) heater is one of the methods for effective supplementary heating. In this study, the PTC elements were made by typical manufacturing processes including forming ohmic contact layer, and prototype of PTC heater was designed and made for the engine vehicle. We also investigated the performance characteristic of the PTC heater through the experiments, and compared the performance among each of commercial PTC heaters. Therefore, the experimental results indicated that prototype of PTC heater had satisfactory performance. This study will contribute to developing the novel manufacturing processes and reducing the material cost of the PTC elements.