Dimensional analysis

Dimensional analysis is a useful tool which finds important applications in physics and engineering. It is most effective when there exist a maximal number of dimensionless quantities constructed out of the relevant physical variables. Though a complete theory of dimensional analysis was developed way back in 1914 in a seminal paper by Buckingham, systematic procedures necessary to construct a sufficient number of dimensionless quantities have become available only recently. In this article, we describe with an example the steps involved in the Szirtes algorithm which is fairly simple to understand and quite straightforward to use.