Brick partition problems in three dimensions (Q2659202)

A (3D) brick is the Cartesian product of three closed intervals. A brick partition is a brick cut into brick pieces; it is called \(k\)-piercing (resp. \(k\)-slicing) if every cutting axis-parallel line (resp. plane) cuts at least \(k\) of its pieces. The minimum number of pieces of a 2-piercing brick partition is 8, and for 2-slicing it is 4. For \(k\geq 3\), a \(k\)-piercing brick partition with \(12k-15\) pieces is constructed, while any such partition is shown to need at least \(12k-16\) pieces. The minimum number of pieces of a \(k\)-slicing brick partition is shown to be exactly \(2k-1\).