  The developing structure in systems of compacting ductile grains were studied
experimentally in two and three dimensions. In both dimensions, the peaks of
the radial distribution function were reduced, broadened, and shifted compared
with those observed in hard disk- and sphere systems. The geometrical
three--grain configurations contributing to the second peak in the radial
distribution function showed few but interesting differences between the
initial and final stages of the two dimensional compaction. The evolution of
the average coordination number as function of packing fraction is compared
with other experimental and numerical results from the literature. We conclude
that compaction history is important for the evolution of the structure of
compacting granular systems.
