Crest Factor

Peak value divided by the R.M.S. value, used as a measure of the severity of a segment of data. For example, a long time history can be divided into a number of small segments and the crest factor of each segment calculated. An inspection of the crest factors highlights the time segments of high activity. The crest factor provides a measure of the spikiness in the data.

The more spikey the signal the greater the crest factor.

See also: Peak Value, Root Mean Square.