inspectional analysis
From Glossary of Meteorology
The reduction of the mathematical equations of a problem to nondimensional units of space, time, and mass; or testing such equations for invariance under any group of transformations.
The procedure stands in close relation to dimensional analysis and usually gives rise to a set of nondimensional numbers appearing as coefficients in the governing equations. These can always be arranged to be the same as the nondimensional numbers of parameters of a corresponding dimensional analysis.