Perfcode is a numerical model for simulating drainage from roadways. The model was developed to study the drainage behaviour of a porous asphalt known as permeable friction course that is placed on top of regular impermeable pavement. Under small rainfall intensities, drainage is contained within the porous layer; but under higher rainfall intensities, drainage occurs both within and on top of the porous pavement. Perfcode simulates this coupled unsteady drainage process.
The model predicts the variation of water depth within and on top of the porous layer through time. Inputs are the rainfall pattern (hyetograph), geometric information regarding the roadway layout, and hydraulic properties of the pavement. The porous layer is treated as an unconfined aquifer using Darcy’s law and the Dupuit-Forchheimer assumptions. Surface flow is modeled using the diffusion wave approximation to the shallow water equations. A mass balance approach is used to couple surface and subsurface phases. Straight and curved roadway geometries are accommodated via a curvilinear grid.
Further details on the development, validation, and application of Perfcode are available in the following references. Please cite these references when using Perfcode.
BJ Eck, ME Barrett, RJ Charbeneau (2012) [Coupled Surface-Subsurface Model for Simulating Drainage from Permeable Friction Course Highways] (http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29HY.1943-7900.0000474) Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 138 (1), 13-22
BJ Eck, RJ Charbeneau, ME Barrett (2010) [Drainage hydraulics of porous pavement: Coupling surface and subsurface flow] (http://www.crwr.utexas.edu/reports/2010/rpt10-2.shtml) Center for Research in Water Resources, University of Texas at Austin
A video showing results of a Perfcode simulation is also available at http://bradeck.net/pfc-video/index.htm
The easiest way to become familiar with the inputs Perfcode needs and the outputs it generates is to run one of the test examples included in the repository.
- Download the zip file of the repository and Unzip to your preferred location
- Open a command prompt in one of the \test- directories
- Invoke the run-test.bat batch file
- Refer to Appendix A of the report linked above for details on the input and output files.
A windows binary is included in the \bin directory.
The application may also be compiled as follows:
- Open a command prompt in the \build directory
- Confirm that gfortran is installed and can be invoked from the \build directory with command gfortran
- Run the batch file compile.bat
- Find the executable in the \bin directory
Compilation and testing are specified in the Makefile.
From a terminal session in the root folder of the project, compile with
make and run the tests with make test.