Although Accelerated Pavement Testing (APT) is often done with specific objectives, valuable pavement performance data is generated over the long-term that may be used to investigate pavement behaviour in general and calibrate mechanistic-empirical design models. This paper presents a study on subgrade permanent deformation based on the data generated from a series of Heavy Vehicle Simulator (HVS) tests done at the Richmond Field Station in California. The total subgrade deflection was found to be a better indicator of subgrade permanent deformation than the commonly accepted subgrade vertical strain. A mechanistic-empirical subgrade deformation model was also calibrated successfully for a range of subgrade permanent deformation levels from 1 to 21 mm. The subgrade permanent deformation was found to increase rapidly at subgrade deflection levels above 800 micron.
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