Many polytopes meeting the conjectured Hirsch bound (Q1269445)

Let \(\Delta (d,n)\) denote the maximum edge-diameter of \(d\)-dimensional polytopes with \(n\) facets. W. M. Hirsch conjectured in 1957 that \(\Delta (d,n)\leq n-d\) for all \(n>d\geq 2\). While this conjecture remains unproved, the authors construct, by means of wedging, truncation and blending, suitable polytopes to prove that this upper bound for \(\Delta (d,n)\) is attained if not surpassed for many \(d\) and \(n\). In particular \(\Delta (d,n) \geq n-d\) for all \(n>d\geq 14\).