SSMT – Phase Dials, Hysteresis, and Survival Bands (0D)

From “below freezing” panic to a calm, graded survival signal

Most systems treat danger like a light switch. SSMT replaces that with a smooth, signed survival dial you can trust.

Instead of screaming “ALERT: BELOW 0°C,” SSMT answers a better question:

  • Which side of the critical boundary are we on?
  • How deep into danger are we?
  • Are we oscillating on the edge, or are we firmly in a safe zone?

This page explains how that works using a_phase, a_phase_fused, and Q_phase.

These dials are what make SSMT useful not just for weather or HVAC, but for batteries, pipelines, cryo loops, structural safety, food transport, life-support, neonatal care — anywhere survival margins matter.

1. Single-phase proximity dial (a_phase)

a_phase tells you how close you are to a specific physical or biological pivot: freeze, gel, warp, boil, unsafe-for-human-contact, etc.

It’s continuous, signed, and always bounded in (-1,+1).

d_m     := ( T_K - T_m ) / DeltaT_m
a_phase := tanh( c_m * d_m )

Where:

  • T_m is the critical pivot temperature in Kelvin (for example, 273.15 K for freezing water).
  • DeltaT_m is the “softness width” in Kelvin. It defines how wide the danger band feels.
  • c_m > 0 controls sharpness. Higher c_m means “urgency ramps faster.”
  • a_phase is the dial.

How to read it:

  • a_phase ≈ -1 → “We are well into the cold-risk zone.”
  • a_phase ≈ 0 → “We are sitting on the boundary.”
  • a_phase ≈ +1 → “We are safely on the hot side of that boundary.”

This is already better than “if T < 0°C then ALERT,” because:

  • It tells you how far into risk you are.
  • It tells you which side of the pivot you’re on.
  • It doesn’t flicker if you bounce ±0.1°C.

This is incredibly important in real deployments like:

  • water lines in freezing conditions,
  • lithium cells near runaway onset,
  • cryogenic propellant handling,
  • infant incubators,
  • composite surfaces near delamination temperature.

2. Multi-pivot fused dial (a_phase_fused)

Some systems don’t only care about one pivot.
Example: a high-performance battery pack may care about:

  • too cold (can’t deliver current efficiently),
  • “critical hot” (thermal runaway precursor),
  • structural/housing tolerance.

You can fuse several pivots into one global survivability dial.

# normalize each pivot
z_i := c_m_i * ( T_K - T_m_i ) / DeltaT_m_i

# weighted mean (default equal weights)
W      := max( sum_i w_i , eps_w )
z_bar  := (1 / W) * sum_i( w_i * z_i )

# bounded fused survival dial
a_phase_fused := tanh( z_bar )
a_phase_fused := clamp_a( a_phase_fused, eps_a )
  • Each pivot i has its own {T_m_i, DeltaT_m_i, c_m_i}.
  • w_i lets you weight some pivots more heavily (for example, catastrophic warp > mild cosmetic softening).
  • eps_w > 0 prevents divide-by-zero.
  • The result is again bounded in (-1,+1).

Why this matters:

  • You get one dial that represents “how survivable is this state overall?”
  • You can sort, rank, or alert on that dial across sites, vendors, or even spacecraft, without exposing raw thresholds.

You typically emit either a_phase (single pivot) or a_phase_fused (multi-pivot), not both.

3. Hysteresis memory (Q_phase) — stopping alert chatter

Even a clean dial can still “flutter” near a pivot if temperature is noisy.

Imagine a coolant loop oscillating around a warping threshold, or a life-support system drifting around “unsafe for unprotected skin.”
You don’t want 45 on/off alarms per minute.

SSMT includes a lightweight memory channel called Q_phase that absorbs flicker.

The idea:

  1. Estimate which side of the pivot we’re on (softly).
  2. Smooth that answer with memory that gets stronger when the signal is noisy.

A typical construction looks like this:

# side likelihood: which side of T_m are we on?
p_side := 0.5 * ( 1 + tanh( k_side * ( T_K - T_m ) ) )
# p_side ~0 => "cold side"
# p_side ~1 => "hot side"

# adaptive exponential smoothing
Q_phase := rho * Q_phase_prev + (1 - rho) * clip(p_side, 0, 1)

Where:

  • k_side > 0 sets how sharply p_side flips across the pivot.
  • rho in (0,1) is the memory weight (higher rho = more memory / less chatter).
  • Q_phase stays between 0 and 1.

How to use it:

  • Q_phase near 0 → “We have effectively been on the cold/danger side.”
  • Q_phase near 1 → “We have effectively been on the hot/safe side.”
  • You can now require dwell time before escalating, e.g.:
    “Trigger escalation only if Q_phase has been below 0.2 for 15 minutes.”

In plain language:

  • a_phase tells you where you are right now.
  • Q_phase tells you where you’ve effectively been living.

That distinction is the difference between “panic mode because of jitter” and “real event.”

4. Why this is a breakthrough for governance and audit

Traditional rule:

IF temp < 0°C: ALERT
ELSE: OK

Problems:

  • Depends on °C vs °F conversion.
  • Flickers like crazy at 0°C.
  • Says nothing about how dangerous the situation is.
  • Leaves no standardized trail for audit.

SSMT rule:

IF a_phase <= -0.6 for 20 minutes: FreezeRisk
IF a_phase_fused >= +0.8 for 10 minutes: OverheatCritical
IF Q_phase < 0.2 for sustained 15 minutes: Escalate human review

Now:

  • Everything is bounded in (-1,+1) or [0,1].
  • Everything is replayable, because a_phase, a_phase_fused, and Q_phase come from published pivots and knobs.
  • Everyone in the chain — operations, compliance, insurer, regulator — can verify that you followed the same rule you claimed you would.

This is how you prove “we were not negligent.”
Not after the fact, but live.

5. Where this applies immediately

This structure (phase dial + hysteresis memory) is ready to drop into:

  • grid and transformer thermal monitoring,
  • aerospace hull and seal integrity bands,
  • battery pack safety and warranty enforcement,
  • municipal cold-weather infrastructure (burst pipe prevention),
  • hospital / neonatal thermal envelope protection,
  • food chain cold storage / vaccine transport,
  • human habitat and suit safety in off-world environments.

These are all high-stakes, high-liability scenarios.
They are also scenarios where today’s alerts are still “less than X°C” hard-coded in one site’s SCADA system and not understood anywhere else.

SSMT upgrades that to a common, portable dialect of survivability — without taking control away from local engineers.

Important note

None of these dials (a_phase, a_phase_fused, Q_phase) remove the need for engineering judgment, medical judgment, mission control, or safety approval.

They give those teams:

  • a bounded snapshot of “how deep are we in danger,”
  • a stable memory of “how long we’ve been in danger,”
  • and a clean, timestamped story that can be shown later.

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