Introduction to Internal
Combustion Engine
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Introduction :
• Heat engine : It can be defined as any engine that converts
thermal energy to mechanical work output. Examples of heat
engines include: steam engine, diesel engine, and gasoline
(petrol) engine.
• On the basis of how thermal energy is being delivered to
working fluid of the heat engine, heat engine can be
classified as an internal combustion engine and external
combustion engine.
• In an Internal combustion engine, combustion takes place
within working fluid of the engine, thus fluid gets come in
contact with combustion products.
– Petrol engine is an example of internal combustion
engine, where the working fluid is a mixture of air and
fuel .
• In an External combustion engine, working fluid gets
energy using boilers by burning fossil fuels or any other fuel,
thus the working fluid does not come in contact with
combustion products.
– Steam engine is an example of external combustion
engine, where the working fluid is steam.
Internal combustion engines may be classified as :
– Spark Ignition engines.
– Compression Ignition engines.
• Spark ignition engine (SI engine): An engine in which
the combustion process in each cycle is started by use of an
external spark.
• Compression ignition engine (CI engine): An engine in
which the combustion process starts when the air-fuel
mixture self ignites due to high temperature in the
combustion chamber caused by high compression.
– Spark ignition and Compression Ignition engine
operate on either a four stroke cycle or a two stroke
cycle.
• Four stroke cycle : It has four piston strokes over two
revolutions for each cycle.
• Two stroke cycle : It has two piston strokes over one
On the basis of thermodynamics cycles
commonly engines are also classified as
otto cycle :- most of the petrol engines work on
this cycle.
Diesel cycle: - Low speed diesel engines work
on this cycle.
Mixed or limited pressure (Dual cycle):- The
high speed diesel engines work on this cycle.
Figure1 : Engine components (four stroke)
Figure2 : Engine components (four stroke)
Figure3 : Engine components (Two stroke)
Figure4: Engine components
Components:
I.C. Engine components shown in figure1 and figure2
are defined as follows:
• Block : Body of the engine containing cylinders, made
of cast iron or aluminum.
• Cylinder : The circular cylinders in the engine block
in which the pistons reciprocate back and forth.
• Head : The piece which closes the end of the
cylinders, usually containing part of the clearance
volume of the combustion chamber.
• Combustion chamber: The end of the cylinder
between the head and the piston face where
combustion occurs.
– The size of combustion chamber continuously
changes from minimum volume when the piston is at
• Crankshaft : Rotating shaft through which engine
work output is supplied to external systems.
– The crankshaft is connected to the engine block
with the main bearings.
– It is rotated by the reciprocating pistons through
the connecting rods connected to the
crankshaft
• Connecting rod : Rod connecting the piston with the
rotating crankshaft, usually made of steel or alloy
forging in most engines but may be aluminum in some
small engines.
• Piston rings: Metal rings that fit into circumferential
grooves around the piston and form a sliding surface
against the cylinder walls.
• Camshaft : Rotating shaft used to push open
valves at the proper time in the engine cycle,
either directly or through mechanical or hydraulic
linkage (push rods, rocker arms, tappets) .
• Push rods : The mechanical linkage between the
camshaft and valves on overhead valve engines
with the camshaft in the crankcase.
• Crankcase : Part of the engine block surrounding
the crankshaft.
– In many engines the oil pan makes up part of
the crankcase housing.
• Exhaust manifold : Piping system which carries
exhaust gases away from the engine cylinders,
usually made of cast iron .
• Intake manifold :Piping system which delivers incoming air to
the cylinders, usually made of cast metal, plastic, or composite
material.
– In most SI engines, fuel is added to the air in the intake
manifold system either by fuel injectors or with a carburetor.
– The individual pipe to a single cylinder is called runner.
• Carburetor : A device which mix the proper amount of fuel
into the air flow by means of pressure differential.
– For many decades it was the basic fuel metering system on
all automobile (and other) engines.
• Spark plug : Electrical device used to initiate combustion in
an SI engine by creating high voltage discharge across an
electrode gap.
I.C. Engine components apart from
components shown in the figure:
• Exhaust System: Flow system for removing exhaust gases from the cylinders,
treating them, and exhausting them to the surroundings.
– It consists of an exhaust manifold which carries the exhaust gases away
from the engine, a thermal or catalytic converter to reduce emissions, a
muffler to reduce engine noise, and a tailpipe to carry the exhaust gases
away from the passenger compartment.
• Flywheel : Rotating mass with a large moment of inertia connected to the crank
shaft of the engine.
– The purpose of the flywheel is to store energy and furnish large angular
momentum that keeps the engine rotating between power strokes and
smoothes out engine operation.
• Fuel injector : A pressurized nozzle that sprays fuel
into the incoming air (SI engines )or into the cylinder
(CI engines).
• Fuel pump : Electrically or mechanically driven pump
to supply fuel from the fuel tank (reservoir) to the
engine.
• Glow plug : Small electrical resistance heater
mounted inside the combustion chamber of many CI
engines, used to preheat the chamber enough so that
combustion will occur when first starting a cold engine.
– The glow plug is turn off after the engine is started.
• Starter : Several methods are used to start IC
engines. Most are started by use of an electric motor
(starter) geared to the engine flywheel. Energy is
supplied from an electric battery.
Figure5 : Engine Terminology
Engine Terminology :
Figure 5, shows the pressure volume diagram of ideal engine
cycle along with engine terminology as follows:
• Top Dead Center (TDC): Position of the piston when it stops at
the furthest point away from the crankshaft.
– Top because this position is at the top of the engines
(not always), and dead because the piston stops as this
point.
– When the piston is at TDC, the volume in the cylinder is
a minimum called the clearance volume.
• Bottom Dead Center (BDC): Position of the piston when it stops
at the point closest to the crankshaft. Volume of the cylinder is
maximum
• Stroke : Distance traveled by the piston from one extreme
position to the other : TDC to BDC or BDC to TDC.
• Bore :It is defined as cylinder diameter or piston face diameter;
piston face diameter is same as cylinder diameter( minus small
clearance).
• Swept volume/Displacement volume : Volume displaced by
the piston as it travels through one stroke.
– Swept volume is defined as stroke times bore.
– Displacement can be given for one cylinder or entire engine
(one cylinder times number of cylinders).
• Clearance volume : It is the minimum volume of
the cylinder available for the charge (air or air fuel
mixture) when the piston reaches at its outermost
point (top dead center or outer dead center) during
compression stroke of the cycle.
– Minimum volume of combustion chamber
with piston at TDC.
• Compression ratio : The ratio of total volume to
clearance volume of the cylinder is the compression
ratio of the engine.
– Typically compression ratio for SI engines
varies form 8 to 12 and for CI engines it
varies from 12 to 24
SI Engine Ideal Otto Cycle
Four Stroke Cycle Animation
Spark plug
Suction Stroke
Compression
Stroke
Power Stroke
Exhaust Stroke
21
Intake Stroke
Intake valve opens.
Piston moves down, ½
turn of crankshaft.
A vacuum is created in
the cylinder.
Atmospheric pressure
pushes the air/fuel
mixture into the
cylinder.
22
Compression Stroke
•Valves close.
•Piston moves up, ½
turn of crankshaft.
•Air/fuel mixture is
compressed.
•Fuel starts to
vaporize and heat
begins to build.
23
Power Stroke
Valves remain
closed.
Spark plug fires
igniting fuel mixture.
Piston moves down,
½ turn of crankshaft.
Heat is converted to
mechanical energy.
24
Exhaust Stroke
Exhaust valve
opens.
Piston move up,
crankshaft makes ½
turn.
Exhaust gases are
pushed out polluting
the atmosphere.
25
Otto Cycle Analysis
Process 1-2 : Reversible
adiabatic compression process
r 1
T2 V1
T1 V2
Process 3-4: Reversible
adiabatic expansion process..
r 1 r 1
T3 V4 V1
T4 V3 V2
A spark-ignition engine is proposed to have a CR of 10 while
operating with a low temperature of 200°C and a low pressure
of 200 kPa. If the work output is to be 1000 kJ/kg, calculate the
maximum possible thermal efficiency and compare with that of
a Carnot cycle.
Diesel cycle.
Compression Ignition
Engine :
• We will deal with Compression
Ignition engine.
• The ideal diesel cycle PV diagram is
shown in following figure 8.
Figure8: Ideal diesel cycle P-V Diagram.
Four stroke Diesel Engine
Animation
Air Intake
Suction Stroke
Fuel
Injector
Compression
Stroke
Power Stroke
Exhaust Stroke
40
Four strokes of CI Engine Cycle :
• Intake/Suction Stroke : The same as the intake
stroke in an SI engine with one major difference : no
fuel is added to the incoming air, refer figure 10.
• Compression Stroke : The same as in an SI engine
except that only air is compressed and compression is
to higher pressures and temperature, refer figure11.
– Late in the compression stroke fuel is injected
directly into the combustion chamber, where it
mixes with very hot air.
– This causes the fuel to evaporate and self ignite,
causing combustion to start.
» Combustion is fully developed by TDC and continues
at about constant pressure until fuel injection is
complete and the piston has started towards BDC,
Why not diesel?
1. Diesel engines, because they have much higher compression ratios
(20:1 for a typical diesel vs. 8:1 for a typical gasoline engine), tend to
be heavier than an equivalent gasoline engine.
2. Diesel engines also tend to be more expensive.
3. Diesel engines, because of the weight and compression ratio, tend
to have lower maximum RPM ranges than gasoline engines . This
makes diesel engines high torque rather than high horsepower, and
that tends to make diesel cars slow in terms of acceleration.
4. Diesel engines must be fuel injected, and in the past fuel injection
was expensive and less reliable.
5. Diesel engines tend to produce more smoke.
6. Diesel engines are harder to start in cold weather.
7. Diesel engines are much noisier and tend to vibrate.
42
Two stroke Engine
Advantages
The two things in favor of diesel engines are
• better fuel economy
• longer engine life working
important advantages over four-stroke
engines:
[Link]-stroke engines do not have valves, which simplifies
their construction and lowers their weight.
[Link] advantages make two-stroke engines lighter,
simpler and less expensive to manufacture.
[Link]-stroke engines also have the potential to produce
twice the power into the same space because there are
twice as many power strokes per revolution.
Disadvantages
1. Two-stroke engines don't last nearly as long as four-stroke
engines. As there is no separate lubrication so parts of a
two-stroke engine wear a lot faster.
2. Two-stroke engines do not use fuel efficiently, so you would
get fewer miles per gallon.
3. Two-stroke engines produce a lot of pollution
Two stroke SI Engine
Two Cycle
Intake & Compression stroke
Intake. The fuel/air mixture is first drawn into
the crankcase by the vacuum created during the
upward stroke of the piston through the reed valve.
he fuel/air mixture is first drawn into
the crankcase by the vacuum created during the
upward stroke of the piston through the reed valve.
Compression. The piston then rises, driven by
flywheel momentum, and compresses the fuel
mixture. (At the same time, another intake stroke
is happening beneath the piston).
Power & Exhaust/Transfer Stroke
Power. At the top of the stroke the
spark plug ignites the fuel mixture.
The burning fuel expands, driving
the piston downward.
Exhaust/Transfer: Toward the end of the stroke,
the piston exposes the intake port, allowing the
compressed fuel/air mixture in the crankcase to
escape around the piston into the main cylinder.
This expels the exhaust gasses out the exhaust
port, usually located on the opposite side of the
cylinder.
