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Although the actual packing of shot is of a very irregular and distorted pattern, for certain statistical purposes the arrangement may be treated as a mixture of closehexagonal and simple-cubical pilings in the proportion required to yield the observed porosity. The average number of contacts per sphere was determined by a simple method for several porosities and was found to agree with the value computed on the above assumption. Statistical distribution curves for contact numbers are also included. For higher porosities the distribution is Gaussian in general character.
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Foote et al. (1929) studied this question.
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