For fixed integers r ≥ 3, e ≥ 3, v ≥ r + 1, an r-uniform hypergraph is called G r (v, e)-free if the union of any e distinct edges contains at least v + 1 vertices. Brown, Erdős and Sós showed that the maximum number of edges of such a hypergraph on n vertices, denoted as f r (n, v, e), satisfiesFor e − 1 | er − v, the lower bound matches the upper bound up to a constant factor; whereas for e − 1 ∤ er − v, in general it is a notoriously hard problem to determine the correct exponent of n.Among other results, we improve the above lower bound by showing thatfor any r, e, v satisfying gcd(e − 1, er − v) = 1. The hypergraph we constructed is in fact G r (ir − ⌈ (i−1)(er−v) e−1 ⌉, i)-free for every 2 ≤ i ≤ e, and it has several interesting applications in Coding Theory. The proof of the new lower bound is based on a novel application of the lower bound on the hypergraph independence number due to Duke, Lefmann, and Rödl.