  The transmission of stress is analysed for static periodic arrays of rigid
grains, with perfect and zero friction. For minimal coordination number (which
is sensitive to friction, sphericity and dimensionality), the stress
distribution is soluble without reference to the corresponding displacement
fields. In non-degenerate cases, the constitutive equations are found to be
simple linear in the stress components. The corresponding coefficients depend
crucially upon geometrical disorder of the grain contacts.
