Is the following known? It seems related to codes and/or Ramsey theory.


Given $r$, for what values of $n,k$, does there exist a collection of $n$ sets whose union contains $k$ elements such that none of these sets is contained in the union of at most $r$ of the sets.


For example given $r<3$ choosing $n=3$, $k=4$ satisfies the requirement, because of $\{\{1,2\},\{2,3\},\{3,4\}\}$. More generally if $r=2$ then any $n$ and $k>n$ satisfies the requirement by generalizing this example.


For $r=1$ with any $n$, and $k>\lceil \log\_2(n)\rceil$ one can satisfy the requirement by numbering the sets in order and using the binary representation of their number (like a Hamming code). This argument can be used to show (information theoretic) lower bounds of $k>\lceil r \log\_2(n)\rceil$.



Collections of sets without $r$-unions covering another set
Erdos Frankl and Furedi, "Families of finite sets in which no set is covered by the union of r others} *Israel Journal of Mathematics* 51 (1–2): 79–89, 1985.



> 
> Let $f\_r(n,k)$ be the maximum number of $k-$subsets of an $n$-set satisfying the condition above. Then
> $$
> f\_r(n,r(t-1)+1+d)\leq \frac{\binom{n-d}t}{\binom{k-d}t}, 
> $$
> for $n$ sufficiently large whenever $d=0,1$ or $d\leq \frac{r}{2t^2}$ with equality holding iff there exists a Steiner Triple System $S(t,r(t-1)+1,n-d)$.
> 
> 
> 


One application is non-adaptive group testing, and the area has been recently active as well. For example see


Indyk, Ngo, Rudra. "Efficiently decodable non-adaptive group testing". *Proceedings of the 21st ACM-SIAM Symposium on discrete algorithms (SODA)*, 2010.


