Dimensional homogeneity

Dr. Yuan Jing, Assistant Professor

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore

1. Dimension

In your math modules, you work on equations as follows:

y  x2 (1)

Here both x and y are pure numbers without any physical meaning.

To calculate the area A of a square of which the length of one side is s, you use the following
equations:

A  s2 (2)

Although Eq. (1) and (2) looks very similar, they are really quite difference. Unlike x and y in Eq.
(1), A and s in Eq. (2) represents physical quantities, e.g. s represents length, so Eq. (1) is a
mathematical equation, but Eq. (2) is a physical equation. Another way to put this is that the
quantity in a physical equation has a dimension. Here a dimension denotes the type of physical
quantity.

In an engineering discipline, there is a set of fundamental dimensions, which can be used to

derived dimensions for all physical quantities in that discipline. In hydraulics, there are three
fundamental dimensions, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Fundamental dimension for hydraulics and fundamental units in SI system

Dimension symbol SI system units

length L Meter (m)

time T Second (s)

mass M Kilogram (kg)

The dimension of any physical quantities in hydraulics can be expressed in terms of these three
fundamental dimensions. For example, velocity V is defined as displacement divided by time, so
its dimension is L/T. Acceleration a is defined as the change of velocity divided by time, so its
dimension is L/T2. Force is defined based on the Newton’s second law, F=ma, where m is mass,
so its dimension is ML/T2.

Here we introduce the following operator:

[ * ] ~ dimension of *

Thus, the aforementioned examples can be written as:

[velocity]=L/T
[acceleration]=L/T 2
[Force]=ML/T 2

2. Dimensional homogeneity
To ensure the equations applied to describe nature phenomena are meaningful, the following
Principles of Dimensional Homogeneity is required:

A. Both sides of the equation must have the same dimension

B. Wherever a sum of quantities appears, all the terms in the sum must have the same
dimension
C. All arguments of any exponential, logarithmic, trigonometric or other special functions
that appear in an equation must be dimensionless.

Example 1:

The displacement s of an object with initial velocity u and constant acceleration a is:

1
s  ut  at 2
2

You should be able to prove that the two terms on the right-hand side have the same dimension,
which is also the dimension of s on the left-hand side of this equation. This illustrates principle A.
It should be noted that principle B can also be interpreted as principle A. This is because we can
always move one term to the other side of an equation by subtracting it from both sides.
Example 2:

The velocity u of turbulent flow near a wall surface is often expressed as:

u* z
u( z)  ln( )
 z0

where z is the vertical distance from the wall, κ=0.4 is just a pure number, u* is called the shear
velocity which has the same dimension as velocity. As you can see, inside the logarithmic
operator, z is divided by a certain length scale z0, so the ratio z/z0 has no dimension, which
corresponds to Principle C. z0 is called the roughness length scale, which represents how rough
the surface is. You will learn more about this equation in the second part of this module.

Figure 1 Logarithmic profile of turbulent flow velocity near a solid wall

The dimension homogeneity is a very useful tool for you to judge whether your solution is
accurate. If any principles are violated, your solution MUST BE WRONG.

3. Unit system

In order to quantify a physical quantity, we invent the unit system. The most common unit
system is the SI-system, which is adopted for this module. Corresponding to the three
fundamental dimensions, there are three fundamental units listed in Table 1. Any other unit in
the SI system can be expressed using the fundamental units. For example the unit of force,
Newton, is just kg∙m/s2. As long as you use the SI system, you can forget about the units in
applying physical equations. For example, if the gravity acceleration is 9.8m/s2 and the time
duration is 10s, the change of free-falling velocity is 9.8*10=9.8m/s. In many calculations, you
may not be given a standard unit, e.g. I can say the mass of an object is 10g instead of 0.01kg, so
you must convert units. Therefore, here are some tips:

 When formulating a system, use symbolic notation, not the “number+unit” format, e.g.
use “g” for gravity instead of “9.8m/s2”.
 Carry out all necessary manipulations and operations to your equations retaining the
symbolic notations until the last step
 Check the dimensional homogeneity before plugging in numbers and punching
calculators
 Obtain the numerical value and always put a unit next to a number!