A post injection is utilized in a more effective manner. In an internal combustion engine which is provided with a fuel injection valve for injecting fuel into a cylinder of the internal combustion engine, in cases where a post injection is carried out after a main injection of fuel from the fuel injection valve, when a rotation speed of the internal combustion engine is equal to or more than a first predetermined speed, a penetration force of fuel in the post injection is made larger than a penetration force of fuel in the main injection, whereas when the rotation speed of the internal combustion engine is less than a second predetermined speed which is equal to or less than the first predetermined speed, the penetration force of fuel in the post injection is made smaller than the penetration force of fuel in the main injection.

A method for compensating for a variable distance between two components of an apparatus for providing a fluid filtering device therebetween is provided. The method comprises placing an adjustable filtering device between two components, altering the distance between the two components, and compensating for the change in distance between the two components by varying a dimension of the adjustable filtering device.

A control apparatus for an internal combustion engine in the present invention is provided with a fuel injection valve (12) which is capable of directly injecting fuel into a cylinder, and which includes: a needle valve (12b) that has a seat contact part (12b1) at its distal end part; and a nozzle body (12a) that has a seat part (12a1) with which the seat contact part (12b1) comes into contact, a fuel receiving part (12d) formed downstream of the seat part (12a1), and a plurality of nozzle holes (12e) formed downstream of the seat part (12a1). The control apparatus executes learning control of fuel injection amount to learn the fuel injection amount. Further, the control apparatus executes pre-learning injection of fuel prior to execution of learning-use injection of fuel for the learning control.