The hierarchical properties of contact networks in granular packings

The topological structure resulting from the network of contacts between grains (contact network) is studied for very large samples of disorderly-packed monosized spheres with densities ranging from 0.58 to 0.64. The hierarchical organization of such a structure is studied by means of a topological map which starts from a given sphere and moves outwards in concentric shells through the contact network. We find that the topological density of disordered sphere packing is larger than the topological density of equivalent lattice sphere packings.