Upper bounds on packing density for circular cylinders with high aspect ratio (Q741612)

The paper is devoted to packing of \(t\)-cylinders and capped \(t\)-cylinders. Define \(t\)-cylinder to be a closed solid circular cylinder in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) with unit radius and length \(t\). Define a capped \(t\)-cylinder to be a closed set in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) composed of a \(t\)-cylinder with solid unit hemispherical caps. Let \(t_0=\frac{4}{3}(\frac{4}{\sqrt{3}}+1)^3\). Then it is proved that for any \(t\)-cylinder \(\mathcal{C}\) with \(t\geq 2t_0+2\) its packing density \(\rho(\mathcal{C})\) is smaller than \(\frac{t}{\frac{\sqrt{12}}{\pi}(t-2-2t_0)+2t_0+\frac{4}{3}}\). Similarly, for any capped \(t\)-cylinder \(\mathcal{C}\) with \(t\geq 2t_0\) its packing density \(\rho(\mathcal{C})\) is smaller than \(\frac{t+\frac{4}{3}}{\frac{\sqrt{12}}{\pi}(t-2t_0)+2t_0+\frac{4}{3}}\). For \(t>253\) these bounds improves earlier bounds of Fejes Toth and Kuperberg. As a corollary it is proved that for both types of cylinders we have \[ \rho(\mathcal{C})\leq \frac{\pi}{\sqrt{12}}+\frac{10}{t}. \] Also some upper bounds for packing densities of packings by non-congruent cylinders are proved.