Floppy modes and nonaffine deformations in random fiber networks

We study the elasticity of random fiber networks. Starting from a
microscopic picture of the nonaffine deformation fields, we
calculate the macroscopic elastic moduli both in a scaling theory
and a self-consistent effective medium theory. By relating
nonaffinity to the low-energy excitations of the network ("floppy
modes"), we achieve a detailed characterization of the nonaffine
deformations present in fibrous networks.