Semi-cyclic holey group divisible designs with block size three and applications to sampling designs and optical orthogonal codes

We consider the existence problem for a semi-cyclic holey group divisible design of type (n,m^t) with block size 3, which is denoted by a 3-SCHGDD of type (n,m^t). When t is odd and n\neq 8 or t is doubly even and t\neq 8, the existence problem is completely solved; when t is singly even, many infinite families are obtained. Applications of our results to two-dimensional balanced sampling plans and optimal two-dimensional optical orthogonal codes are also discussed.