Hello,
The reference is an input to TELEMAC and can be set with the keyword REFERENCE FILE.
There are various statistic that are being done when validting a result. The REFERENCE FILE is thus considered to be a reference to which the computation is to be compared. The maximum deviation found between the two results for each time step is therefore written in the listing printouts.
The comparison is made by the VALIDA subroutine which may be modified to include, for example,
a comparison with an exact solution.
Hope this help.
Sébastien.