Saturation
Saturation turns up in 2 fields: HVAC, telecom & it. Here is what it means to the people in each one.
Saturation in HVAC
The state where liquid and vapor refrigerant coexist, so its temperature is locked to its pressure.
At saturation, each pressure has one boiling temperature, which is why techs can read an evaporator or condenser temperature straight off a gauge. Inside a working coil most of the refrigerant is saturated; it leaves the evaporator superheated and the condenser subcooled. Superheat and subcooling are both measured against saturation temperature.
"Low side reads 118 psi on 410A, that's about 40 degrees saturation, right where an evaporator should be."
Saturation in telecom & it
The state where a network or component has reached its maximum traffic-handling limit.
The condition in which a communications system, link, or switch is processing traffic at its absolute maximum capacity. In telephony, this is typically measured as one erlang per circuit, meaning the line is continuously occupied. When a system hits saturation, any additional incoming calls or data packets are either queued, delayed, or dropped entirely.
"The trunk group hit saturation during the morning rush, so callers started getting fast busy signals."