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Abstract

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) uses AASHTOWare’s Pavement ME Design Version 3.0 (PaveME) to develop mechanistic-empirical designs for new and reconstructed pavements. Transfer functions used for estimating pavement distress in PaveME rely on national calibration values derived from the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) database. However, these often fail to reflect Kentucky’s local conditions, materials, and practices. To address this issue, Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) researchers completed local calibrations for several key transfer functions (rutting, reflective fatigue cracking, and roughness (IRI)) to improve the predictive accuracy of and reduce bias in pavement performance models developed for rehabilitation projects that involve placing asphalt concrete over existing flexible pavement (AC over AC). For calibration, researchers utilized forensic pavement data collected from 11 KYTC projects and 45 calibration locations for which detailed structural information was available (from pavement cores, falling weight deflectometer tests, and ground penetrating radar surveys) Performance data from KYTC’s Pavement Management System and historical traffic data were integrated into models as well. Calibration sections were standardized at a length of 0.3 miles to minimize variability in performance measurements across years. Updated models developed using local calibration values outperformed models that used national calibration values. Statistical tests confirmed no significant differences between measured and predicted values following calibration. Updated calibration coefficients for AC over AC rehabilitation designs are provided. Future local calibration efforts should focus on new flexible pavements and experiment with segmenting calibration sections by traffic level, pavement thicknesses, or functional classification to enhance accuracy.

Report Date

5-2026

Report Number

KTC-26-24

Digital Object Identifier

https://doi.org/10.13023/ktc.rr.2026.24

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