  Continuum strain energy functions are developed for soft biological tissues
that possess long fibrillar components. The treatment is based on the model of
an elastica, which is our fine scale model, and is homogenized in a simple
fashion to obtain a continuum strain energy function. Notably, we avoid solving
the full fourth-order, nonlinear, partial differential equation for the
elastica by resorting to other assumptions, kinematic and energetic, on the
response of the individual, elastica-like fibrils.

Tissues and Organs;Quantitative Methods