ABSTRACT
The internal combustion engine (ICE) may be considered one of the most significant inventions that changed human life in recent times. It provides prompt and simple control of power generation while consuming a variety of commonly available fuels. Enormous research effort and resources have increasingly been expended to improve its performance while reducing its undesirable impact on the environment. Over the years billions of units have been produced, and the internal combustion engine has come to be the prime device at present for the production of work through fuel combustion. Such devices, which are mostly of the reciprocating type, employ intermittent combustion, or they may be of rotary action with continuous combustion. Their distinctly different modes of operation and associated combustion processes often dictate a restrictive choice of design features and the types of fuels that can be used by them. A broad classification of the very wide range of devices developed over the years of this type may be according to the listing shown in Table 2.1. The interrelated engine type devices that manage to a varying degree of success to convert the fuel chemical energy into useful work through controlled combustion are represented in Figure 2.1.
