A new approach based on Bayesian theory is proposed to determine the empirical coefficient in soil settlement calculation.Prior distribution is assumed to be uniform in [0.2,1.4].Posterior density function is developed in the condition of prior distribution combined with the information of observed samples at four locations on a passenger dedicated line.The results show that the posterior distribution of the empirical coefficient obeys Gaussian distribution.The mean value of the empirical coefficient decreases gradually with the increasing of the load on ground,and variance variation shows no regularity.
