Internal Combustion Engine

The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of fuel and an oxidizer (typically air) occurs in a confined space called a combustion chamber. This exothermic reaction creates gases at high temperature and pressure which are permitted to expand. The defining feature of an internal combustion engine is that useful work is performed by the expanding hot gases acting directly to cause movement of solid parts of the engine, by acting on pistons, rotors, or even by pressing on and moving the entire engine itself.

This contrasts with external combustion engines, such as steam engines and Steirling enginers, which use an external combustion chamber to heat a separate working fluid, which then in turn does work, for example by moving a piston or a turbine.

The term Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) is almost always used to refer specifically to reciprocating piston engines, Wankel Engines and similar designs in which combustion is intermittent. However, continuous combustion engines, such as jet engines, most rockets and many gas turbines are also internal combustion engines.

Applications

Internal combustion engines are most commonly used for mobile propulsion in automobiles, equipment, and other portable machinery. In mobile equipment, internal combustion is advantageous, since it can provide high power-to-weight ratios together with excellent fuel energy-density. These engines have appeared in transport in almost all automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, boats, and in a wide variety of aircraft and locomotive, generally using petroleum (called All-Petroleum Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles or APICEVs). Where very high power is required, such as jet aircraft, helicopters and large ships, they appear mostly in the form of turbines.

Operation

All internal combustion engines depend on the exothermic chemical

process of combustion : the reaction of a fuel, typically with the oxygen from the air, although other oxidizers such as nitrous oxide may be employed.

The most common modern fuels are made up of hydrocarbons and are deri

ved mostly from petroleum. These include the fuels known as dieselfuel, gasoline and petroleum gas, and the rarer use of propane gas. Most internal combustion engines designed for gasoline can ru

n on natural gas or liquefied petroleum gases without major modifications except for the fuel delivery components. Liquid and gaseous biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel (a form of diesel fuel that is produced from crops that yield triglycerides such as soybean oil), can also be used. Some can also run on hydrogen gas.

All internal combustion engines must achieve ignition in their cylinders to create combustion. Typically engines use either a spark ignition (SI) method or a compresion ignition (CI) system. In the past, other methods using hot tubes or flames have been used.