On the number of tubes touching a sphere or a tube (Q2494088)

The paper considers three packing problems closely related to the kissing number problem and the Tammes problem. The first two problems are to determine the maximum number of flexible tubes of unit radius that can touch a ball of arbitrary radius in three-space from the outside, or from the inside. The third is to determine the maximum number of flexible tubes of unit radius that can touch another tube of arbitrary radius. For each problem an upper bound is derived. Applications are suggested in mechanical engineering (theory of wire ropes and multistrand cables) and biology (DNA condensation and protein folding).