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internal-combustion engine
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Close-up view of an automobile's internal-combustion engine with visible intake manifold, hoses, and various engine components. A man drives a 1920s iron-wheeled Fordson tractor with an attached plow across a freshly tilled field, with trees lining the background. Diagram showing four types of gasoline engines: an opposed-piston engine with pistons facing each other, a Wankel rotary engine with a triangular rotor, an in-line engine with pistons arranged vertically, and a V-type (V-8) engine with pistons set in a V shape. Arrows indicate the direction of motion in each engine. Diagram comparing turbofan and turboprop air-breathing engines. The turbofan shows air split between the compressor and bypassing the engine, while the turboprop shows hot gases driving a turbine that powers both the compressor and a propeller. Key components such as air intake, compressor, combustion chamber, turbine, and exhaust are labeled, with arrows indicating airflow and hot gas movement. internal-combustion engine Diagram showing the four-stroke cycle of a typical diesel engine, with labeled stages: intake (air enters), compression (air is compressed), power (fuel ignites and pushes piston down), and exhaust (gases exit). Internal-combustion engine
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Close-up view of an automobile's internal-combustion engine with visible intake manifold, hoses, and various engine components.
internal-combustion engine Internal-combustion engine of an automobile.

internal-combustion engine

mechanical engineering
Written by
Charles Lafayette Proctor
Engineer-of-Record, Proctor Engineering Research & Consulting, Inc., Alachua, Florida.
Charles Lafayette Proctor
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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internal-combustion engine, any of a group of devices in which the reactants of combustion (oxidizer and fuel) and the products of combustion serve as the working fluids of the engine. Such an engine gains its energy from heat released during the combustion of the nonreacted working fluids, the oxidizer-fuel mixture. This process occurs within the engine and is part of the thermodynamic cycle of the device. Useful work generated by an internal-combustion (IC) engine results...

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