| Abstract: | Let v and k be positive integers. A (v, k, 1)-packing design is an ordered pair (V, B) where V is a v-set and B is a collection of k-subsets of V (called blocks) such that every 2-subset of V occurs in at most one block of B. The packing problem is mainly to determine the packing number P(k, v), that is, the maximum number of blocks in such a packing design. It is well known that P(k, v) ≤ ⌊v⌊(v − 1)/(k − 1)⌋/k⌋ = J(k, v) where ⌊×⌋ denotes the greatest integer y such that y ≤ x. A (v, k, 1)-packing design having J(k, v) blocks is said to be optimal. In this article, we develop some general constructions to obtain optimal packing designs. As an application, we show that P(5, v) = J(5, v) if v ≡ 7, 11 or 15 (mod 20), with the exception of v ∈ {11, 15} and the possible exception of v ∈ {27, 47, 51, 67, 87, 135, 187, 231, 251, 291}. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 6: 245–260, 1998 |
