On the morning of December 26, 2023, Professor Sun Bohua, Fellow of the Academy of Science of South Africa and professor at the Institute of Mechanics and Technology of Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, visited DGUT at the invitation of the university for academic exchange and delivered an academic report titled "Dimensional Analysis and Its Applications." The exchange session was held in Conference Room A10 of the Interdisciplinary Science Research Center at DGUT and was chaired by Professor Wang Biao, Dean of the School of Materials Science and Engineering. The report was conducted in a hybrid format combining online and in-person participation, with dozens of faculty members and students from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, the School of Mechanical Engineering, and other units attending.

During the exchange session, Professor Sun Bohua shared his academic lineage and educational journey with the audience, emphasizing the importance of seeking universal physical laws. He then introduced dimensional analysis, an important scientific tool, elaborating on its history and detailing the outstanding contributions made by masters such as Buckingham, Bridgman, and Taylor in this field. In the course of the report, Professor Sun presented a particularly famous case, deriving the relationship between the spherical radius of the shock wave and energy in a "point-source explosion" from a dimensional perspective. The resolution of this problem demonstrated the powerful capability of dimensional analysis in addressing complex issues. Finally, Professor Sun introduced the renowned "three-body problem" and his own research findings in this area. Throughout the session, Professor Sun Bohua continually encouraged the attendees to be bold and to press forward in their scientific research endeavors. The entire report was exceptionally engaging, the atmosphere at the exchange session was imbued with a strong academic spirit, and the faculty and students responded with great enthusiasm following the event.

Biography of Professor Sun Bohua:

Professor Sun Bohua was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2010. He currently serves as a professor at the School of Civil Engineering, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, and as the Founding Director and Chief Scientist of the Institute of Mechanics and Technology. He also holds the position of Distinguished Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He previously served as a tenured professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa, as well as a First-level Distinguished Professor at the College of Science and Engineering and the Founding Dean of the International School at Jinan University. He conducted postdoctoral research at Tsinghua University in China, Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Ruhr University Bochum in Germany (as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow), and the University of Cape Town in South Africa. His research primarily covers continuum mechanics, slender thin shell structures, smart composite structures, mechanics of metamaterial structures including biomimetic structural mechanics, the Kepler period law of the three-body problem, the propagation velocity of dominoes, the scaling law of dandelion aerodynamic drag, turbulence phenomena, and similarity solutions in unsteady fluid mechanics. He has led numerous research projects funded by the South African Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation of South Africa, published over one hundred academic papers, and authored and published several books including "Dimensional Analysis and Lie Groups." He also collaborated with graduate students in translating and publishing "Biography of Prandtl" (Higher Education Press). He was awarded the 2017 Distinguished Postdoctoral Alumni Award by Tsinghua University.

Draft: Wang Ben / First Review: Liu Zhao / Second Review: Li Runxia / Third Review: Wang Biao