computeBodyFrontalArea {afpt}

Body frontal area from scaling relation

Description

Body frontal area is a parameter that relates to body drag. This function estimates body frontal area based on empirical scaling relations with mass.

Usage

computeBodyFrontalArea(massEmpty, type = "other")

Arguments

massEmpty

empty body mass (in kg)

type

type of bird; available options are: “passerine” and “other”)

Details

Passerine (Hedenström and Rosén 2003): S_b = 0.0129 m^{0.614}

Other (Pennycuick et al. 1988): S_b = 0.00813 m^{0.666}

Value

Numeric value for the body frontal area.

Note

Body frontal area is used for the computation of body drag. Only use this value if it matches the used definition of the body drag coefficient.

Author(s)

Marco Klein Heerenbrink

References

Pennycuick, C. J., Obrecht III, H. H. and Fuller, M. R. (1988) Empirical estimates of body drag of large waterfowl and raptors. J. Exp. Biol. 135, 253–264.

Hedenström, A. and Rosén, M. (2003) Body frontal area in passerine birds. J. Avian Biol. 34, 159–162.

See Also

Bird

Examples

massEmpty <- 0.215 # kg
Sb <- computeBodyFrontalArea(massEmpty)
print(Sb)
#   [1] 0.002920751 # m2

massEmpty <- 0.215 # kg
birdType <- "passerine" #
Sb <- computeBodyFrontalArea(massEmpty,birdType)
print(Sb)
#   [1] 0.005020037 # m2