Near triple arrays

We introduce near triple arrays as binary row-column designs with at most two consecutive values for the replication numbers of symbols, for the intersection sizes of pairs of rows, pairs of columns and pairs of a row and a column. Near triple arrays form a common generalization of such well-studied classes of designs as triple arrays, (near) Youden rectangles and Latin squares. We enumerate near triple arrays for a range of small parameter sets and show that they exist in the vast majority of the cases considered. As a byproduct, we obtain the first complete enumerations of 6×10 triple arrays on 15 symbols, 7×8 triple arrays on 14 symbols and 5×16 triple arrays on 20 symbols. Next, we give several constructions for families of near triple arrays, and e.g. show that near triple arrays with 3 rows and at least 6 columns exist for any number of symbols. Finally, we investigate a duality between row and column intersection sizes of a row-column design, and covering numbers for pairs of symbols by rows and columns. These duality results are used to obtain necessary conditions for the existence of near triple arrays. This duality also provides a new unified approach to earlier results on triple arrays and balanced grids.