Classification or Types of Internal Combustion Engines

There are many different types of  internal combustion engines. They can be classified by:
1.  Application.  Automobile,  truck, locomotive, light aircraft, marine, portable power system, power generation

2.  Basic  engine design. Reciprocating engines  (in  turn  subdivided by  arrangement  of  cylinders: e.g.,  in-line, V,  radial, opposed), rotary engines (Wankel and other geometries)

3.  Working cycle. Four-stroke cycle: naturally aspirated (admitting atmospheric air),  supercharged  (admitting  pre-compressed  fresh  mixture),  and  turbo-charged  (admitting fresh mixture compressed  in  a  compressor driven  by  an exhaust  turbine),  two-stroke cycle: crankcase  scavenged, supercharged, and turbocharged

4.  Valve or port  design and  location. Overhead (or I-head) valves, under-head  (or L-head) valves,  rotary  valves,  cross-scavenged porting  (inlet  and  exhaust ports on opposite sides of  cylinder at one end), loop-scavenged porting (inlet and exhaust ports on same side of cylinder at one end), through- or uniflow-scavenged (inlet and exhaust ports or valves at different ends of cylinder)

5. Fuel.  Gasoline  (or  petrol),  fuel  oil  (or  diesel  fuel),  natural  gas,  liquid  petroleum gas, alcohols  (methanol,  ethanol), hydrogen, dual fuel

6.  Method  of  mixture  preparation.  Carburetion,  fuel  injection  into  the  intake ports or intake manifold,  fuel injection  into the engine cylinder

7. Method  of  ignition. Spark ignition (in conventional engines where the mixture is uniform and in stratified-charge  engines where the mixture is non-uniform),
compression ignition  (in  conventional  diesels,  as  well  as ignition  in  gas engines by pilot injection of fuel oil)

8.  Combustion chamber design. Open chamber  (many designs: e.g.,  disc, wedge, hemisphere, bowl-in-piston), divided  chamber  (small  and  large auxiliary
chambers; many designs: e.g., swirl chambers, pre-chambers)

9.  Method  of  load control. Throttling of  fuel  and air  flow  together  so mixture composition  is  essentially  unchanged,  control  of  fuel  flow  alone, a  combination of  these

10. Method of cooling. Water cooled, air cooled, un-cooled (other than by natural convection and radiation)