triple point

plural triple points

1. natural sciencesThe unique temperature and pressure at which the solid, liquid and gas phases of a substance are all in equilibrium.

   A solid sublimes only when the pressure of its vapor is below that of the triple point for that substance.

   2006, David B. Troy, Paul Beringer, Remington: The Science and Practice of Pharmacy, →ISBN, page 179

2. natural sciencesA point where the incident shock wave, the reflected shock wave, the Mach stem, and one slipstream meet.

   A triple point may have a convex Mach stem, in which case the SS points upward.

   2012, George Emanuel, Shock Wave Dynamics: Derivatives and Related Topics, →ISBN, page 81

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   When the incident shock wave is at position “a” the second triple point, T, is still inside the zone where the vibrational degree of freedom has not yet reached its equilibrium and the dissociational degree of freedom is still frozen at that position, as its excitation can be assumed to start only after vibrational equilibrium is reached.

   2007, Gabi Ben-Dor, Shock Wave Reflection Phenomena, →ISBN, page 198

   One constant, however, is that the flow, just downstream of the incident shock, at a triple point, must be supersonic.

   2015, George Emanuel, Analytical Fluid Dynamics, Third Edition, →ISBN, page 130

3. mathematicsA point where a curve or surface intersects itself along three arcs.

   A cubic surface with a triple point (a cubic cone) may or may not be rational.

   2007, Rida T Farouki, Pythagorean-Hodograph Curves: Algebra and Geometry Inseparable, →ISBN

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   The number of the distinguished edges whose orientations point towards the triple point is exactly one, or exactly two.

   1998, J. Scott Carter, Masahico Saito, Knotted Surfaces and Their Diagrams, →ISBN, page 162

4. climatologyThe intersection of an occluded front, cold front, and warm front.

   ...together at the point of occlusion, or triple point, where conditions are favorable for formation of a new cyclone, sometimes called a secondary cyclone.

   2002, Joseph M. Moran, Online weather studies, →ISBN, page 232

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   A further investigation is made of the reasonably-close relationship between some multiple tornado outbreaks in the British Isles and the passage of frontal-system triple points (TPs) using, principally, TORRO records and the hourly British Isles charts archived by the Meterorological Office at Bracknell.

   1993, Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts

   The point where occluding starts is the triple point, because there are three air masses involved: that ahead of the occlusion, the warm air aloft, and the air behind the occlusion, or where the cold, warm and occluded fronts meet.

   2013, Phil Croucher, Private Helicopter Pilot Studies JAA BW, →ISBN, page 8-34

5. climatologyThe point where two boundaries, such as a dry line, outflow boundary, or cold front, intersect.

   It is concluded that the severe storms formed in close proximity to a "triple point" (TP), at which a synoptic cold front and "insolation-enhanced" warm front intersected.

   2006, The International Journal of Meteorology

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   Few, however, reach the African continent; some dissipate in the intertropical-front bulge east of southern Africa; others form triple points with the temperate fronts available for recurving anywhere between Australia and the Seychelles-Madagascar-Mascarenes (Reunion-Mauritius-Rodriguez) sector.

   1947, Maurice Adolph Garbell, Tropical and Equatorial Meteorology, page 205

6. plate tectonicsA point where three plates intersect.

   Such a 'piecrust model' has been used to explain the generation of triple points which can give rise to splitting of a continental body.

   2003, Neville Price, Major Impacts and Plate Tectonics, →ISBN, page 131

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   Microstructures like static mineral growth, equilibrated grain boundaries with triple points especially in quartz and feldspar fabric and the lack of plastic crystal lattice deformations even in quartz indicate that metamorphism outlasted deformation.

   2012, O. Oncken, C. Janssen, Basement Tectonics 11 Europe and Other Regions, →ISBN, page 43

   End-member stable triple point configurations are indicated in which the triple point is fixed to the North or South American plates (dashed grey lines) or fixed to the Caribbean Plate (dotted grey lines).

   2014, Duncan Keppie, The Analysis of Diffuse Triple Junction Zones in Plate Tectonics and the Pirate Model of Western Caribbean Tectonics, →ISBN, page 24