In short - SmartTrigger is a unique labor-saving feature of PET. When integrity-testing a pile by the pulse-echo method and tapping the pile's head with a hammer, the system starts recording each hammer trigger. SmartTrigger is a modern triggering method that inspects the trigger shape and not just its amplitude, thus lowering the number of false triggers generated by noise.
Piletest's PET seamlessly collects many impact traces (reflectograms) and handles them together as one entity: "Impact collection." Averaging large impact collection lowers the noise and extends the testing capabilities of the method. For that, it is important that only clean, meaningful impacts are added to the impact collection and averaged.
When moving around the pile head, random accelerometer movement might trigger many noisy impacts.
The basic trigger works on the threshold level. This simple method, which triggers once the amplitude crosses a set value, also collects unwanted noisy impacts.
The SmartTrigger, when activated, inspects the impact shape in real time and filters out most of the noisy impacts while still passing nearly all the good ones.
With SmartTrigger looking at the impact shape, you can set the trigger threshold value to a low and sensitive level and still filter out most of the random noise. The hammer taps can now be fast and gentle and still get more quality impact data in less time.
SmartTrigger works in harmony with AutoSort.
AutoSort, when activated, inspects the impact collection in real-time and keeps a fixed set of the best impacts. As more impacts are collected, the impact set becomes uniform and clean.
To make field work more comfortable, a Convergence message may be set by PET and pop up when the impact collection is sufficient – As soon as:
A sufficient number of impact traces have been collected.
Adding additional impact traces has only a marginal effect on the average result.
Using all of the above lets you swiftly collect quality impact data from the pile and test a pile in less than a minute.
The figure below demonstrates the sensitivity of the smart trigger when it has enough better impacts and rejects what looks like an OK impact.
Reference document - Trigger VS. SmartTrigger
