I don't know what engineering school you went to, but I spent 35 years in aerospace mechanical design and have two patents and I can guarentee you circular shapes take up more room. Why do you think CPTC and GC went to trapezoids? Sit down at your engineering desk and draw six circles side by side. Then draw a horizontal line across the tops and one across the bottoms. Draw a vertical line tangent to the two end circles. Calculate the area of each circle and add them up. Now calculate the area of the overall rectangle. The difference is the wasted space of the circles. The only reason that existing cables of multiple strands use circular wire is that is because until now circular wires was the only shape made. For single strand conductor it is fine, but what struck me as being unique was the trapezoidal shape that I thought that CPTC came up with to get more square inches into the bundle and then I find out that it wasn't there idea at all, but GC's.