Keyboard shortcuts and glossary
The keys and mouse actions of the DrainPilot workspace, and the SWMM and Indian design terms these docs use, in plain English.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Key or action | What it does |
|---|---|
| F5 | Run the simulation, the same as Run or Project > Run Simulation. |
| Ctrl+S | Save: download the project as an .inp file (File > Save). |
| Ctrl+O | Open an .inp file (File > Open...). |
| Ctrl+Z | Undo the last edit to the model (Edit > Undo). While you are typing in a box, it undoes your typing instead. |
| Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z | Redo (Edit > Redo). |
| Del | Delete the selected object, when the cursor is not in a text box (Edit > Delete). |
| Esc | Cancel a link, subcatchment outline or map label you are drawing. In the Property Editor, put back the value you were editing. |
| Enter | Commit a value typed in the Property Editor, close a subcatchment outline, or place a map label. |
| Right-click on the map | Cancel a link or outline you are drawing. |
| Double-click on the map | Close the subcatchment outline you are drawing. |
| Mouse wheel on the map | Zoom in and out around the pointer. |
| Drag on the map with Select Object | On a node, rain gage or label: move it. On empty map: pan. |
On a Mac, Cmd works in place of Ctrl. If a shortcut does nothing, click on the map first so that the DrainPilot page has the keyboard focus rather than the browser's address bar.
Glossary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Conduit | A pipe or open drain between two nodes. |
| Junction | A node where conduits meet: a manhole in a sewer, an inlet or chamber in a storm drain. |
| Outfall | A terminal node where water leaves the system, to a river, a nallah or an STP. |
| Invert | The lowest inside level of a pipe or a manhole. |
| Crown | The highest inside level of a pipe: invert plus diameter. |
| Rim, Max. Depth | The top of a manhole. In SWMM a junction's maximum depth runs from its invert to its rim, so rim = invert + maximum depth; DrainPilot takes the rim as ground level. |
| Offset | How far a conduit end sits above its node's invert (DEPTH offsets) or the level of that end (ELEVATION offsets). |
| Cover | Ground level minus the pipe crown. |
| d/D | Depth of flow divided by the full depth of the pipe. CPHEEO limits sewers to 0.8 at ultimate peak. |
| Area Filled | SWMM's link capacity output: the filled share of the cross-section area, not d/D. |
| HGL | Hydraulic grade line: the water level (head) along the network. |
| Surcharge | Water above the crown of the pipes at a manhole, so the pipes run full under pressure. |
| Flooding | Water leaving a manhole at its rim. Without ponding SWMM counts it as lost. |
| Dynamic wave, kinematic wave | SWMM's routing methods. Dynamic wave (DYNWAVE) solves the full flow equations and handles backwater, surcharge and reverse flow; kinematic wave (KINWAVE) is simpler and cannot. |
| Routing step, reporting step | How often SWMM computes flows (seconds) and how often it saves results (minutes). |
| Continuity error | The percentage of water SWMM gained or lost in its balance of inflow, outflow and storage. |
| Courant condition | The stability limit on the routing step: roughly, water must not cross a whole conduit in one step. |
| DWF | Dry weather flow: the sewage a manhole receives, with its time pattern. |
| RDII | Rainfall dependent infiltration and inflow into a sewer. |
| Peak factor | Peak sewage flow divided by average flow; CPHEEO sets it from the contributory population. |
| Initial and ultimate stage | The sewage flow at the start of the design period (base year) and at its end (30 years for sewers). |
| lpcd | Litres per capita per day. |
| LPS, CMS, MLD | Flow units: litres per second, cubic metres per second, million litres per day. |
| Rational method | Peak runoff Q = C I A from a runoff coefficient, a rainfall intensity and an area. |
| Runoff coefficient C | The share of rainfall that runs off, by land use. |
| IDF curve | Intensity-duration-frequency: rainfall intensity against storm duration for each return period. |
| Return period | The average interval, in years, between storms at least as heavy as the design storm. |
| Alternating block storm | A design rainfall built from an IDF curve with the heaviest block in the middle. |
| Time of concentration, inlet time | The time for runoff from the farthest point to reach a point in the drain; inlet time t0 is the overland part before the drain. |
| Freeboard | The height between the water surface and the top of an open drain. |
| Froude number | Flow velocity relative to the wave speed; above 1 the flow is supercritical. |
| Characteristic width | A subcatchment's area divided by its overland flow length; it controls how fast runoff leaves it. |
| LID | Low impact development: rain gardens, green roofs, permeable paving and similar controls. |
| Lift station, wet well, rising main | A pumping station that lifts sewage from a deep sewer: the wet well collects it and the rising main is the pressure pipe it is pumped through. |
| NSE | Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency: 1 is a perfect fit, 0 is no better than the mean of the observations. |
| SM | CPHEEO Manual on Sewerage and Sewage Treatment Systems, Part A, 2013. |
| SWM | CPHEEO Manual on Storm Water Drainage Systems, Volume I Part A, 2019. |
| CL-S, CL-D | The DPR checklists for sewerage (MoUD, 2012) and storm drainage (SWM Appendix A 2.1). |
| SoR, BOQ, DPR | Schedule of Rates, bill of quantities, detailed project report. |