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Abstract. The structural models of gels typically reported concentrate either on the "solid space" or the "pore space" of the system. The models described in this paper present a connection between grain and pore spaces, applicable to dense gels with uniform particulate microstructure. The gel structure is depicted as a hierarchy at several levels by means of models built up using the Monte-Carlo technique, on the basis of random close packing (RCP) premises. The pore volume distributions are calculated from the largest sphere radius inscribed within the interstices. These distributions are compared to the pore volume distributions of various RCP classic models and to the pore volume distributions of a series of xerogels measured by means of the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller method. Data on the pore volumes associated with different hierarchical levels (e.g., micro-, meso-, or macropores), the local density of the i-th aggregation level and packing of the successive levels are obtained.

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