Hi guys..sorry for this interruption but I have to consult some good proffesional aviation engineers coz I'm planning to participate in the Intel competition (held in USA) and the title I chose is how to increase the wieght to thrust ratio of an engine... Please only serious people reply to this topic who could really help me.
Well, to increase thrust to weight, you either increase the thrust or decrease the weight (amazing right?). There are so many ways of doing both, both well-established and research-level. I'll try to give you some pointers based on what little I've picked up thus far. In my company, we mostly only deal with control software testing for Pratt and Whitney and other commercial engine manufacturers, but the same basic concepts apply to military spec engines as well.
Thrust
- The absolute best way to increase thrust is to determine and achieve the optimum air-to-fuel ratio (optimal for power, not fuel efficiency). This optimum rate varies with speed, altitude, etc., therefore, from an engineering perspective, you must develop extremely detailed requirements such that the right operation level can be determined. To achieve optimum air-to-fuel levels, you can use various techniques, such as inlet design (ex. Divertless Supersonic Intake), variable fuel injection (like in most performance cars) etc. There are literally hundreds of ways to optimize the air-to-fuel ratio for max power. I leave it to you to research them.
- Another simple way of increasing net thrust is to reduce drag. This required an understanding of aerodynamics, which I'm guessing is not what you are interested in.
- There are also many engine specific ways of increasing thrust-to-weight ratio. Therefore, it would be beneficial if you told us what type of engine you are interested in. It could be one of many types of air-breathing engines; turbofan, turboprop, turbojet, ramjet, scramjet, rotary, piston etc. all of which can be used in aircraft. Of course, there are also non-air breathing ones, aka, rocket engines, which are very powerful as it is.
Weight
This is pretty straight forward (theoretically). Ditch the high-density metals, and adopt composites or aluminum wherever possible. Of course, you need to make sure the engine still meets the requirements and constraints (ex. cost and tolerance, respectively). The same goes for the aircraft, the lighter the aircraft, the greater the TWR. There are various established and under-research ways of achieving weight reduction as well.
