The use of Dimensional Analysis in aerodynamics: an historical note

Abstract

A private enquiry about the initial application of Dimensional Analysis to experimental measurements in aerodynamics has been made of the writer. The consequent literature search has revealed what is now to be described. If due credit is to be given correctly the matter needs checking particularly by those who had direct contact with the early aerodynamicists throughout the world: initiation of that check is the reason for this paper. Dimensional Analysis originally came from ideas of similarity which were considered by such masters as Kepler, Newton and Galileo. The idea of equality of dimensions in an equation was used by Fourier. Dimensional Analysis was, after Galileo, used by biologists in the last century but in the general area of physics the initial impetus came from Rayleigh. Rayleigh first advocated the value of Dimensional Analysis in 1885 and though he usually referred to it as a method of similitude he also, despite what has often been written to the contrary, used the description of ‘method of dimensions’.