The elastic strain energy potential for nonlinear fibre-reinforced materials is customarily obtained by superposition of the potentials of the matrix and of each family of fibres. Composites with statistically oriented fibres, such as biological tissues, can be seen as being reinforced by a continuous infinity of fibre families, the orientation of which can be represented by means of a probability density function defined on the unit sphere (i.e. the solid angle). In this case, the superposition procedure gives rise to an integral form of the elastic potential such that the deformation features in the integral, which therefore cannot be calculated a priori. As a consequence, an analytical use of this potential is impossible. In this paper, we implemented this integral form of the elastic potential into a numerical procedure that evaluates the potential, the stress and the elasticity tensor at each deformation step. The numerical integration over the unit sphere is performed by means of the method of spherical designs, in which the result of the integral is approximated by a suitable sum over a discrete subset of the unit sphere. As an example of application, we modelled the collagen fibre distribution in articular cartilage, and used it in simulating displacementcontrolled tests: the unconfined compression of a cylindrical sample and the contact problem in the hip joint.

Articular cartilage is known to be anisotropic and inhomogeneous because of its microstructure. In particular, its elastic properties are influenced by the arrangement of the collagen fibres, which are orthogonal to the bone-cartilage interface in the deep zone, randomly oriented in the middle zone, and parallel to the surface in the superficial zone. In past studies, cartilage permeability has been related directly to the orientation of the glycosaminoglycan chains attached to the proteoglycans which constitute the tissue matrix. These studies predicted permeability to be isotropic in the undeformed configuration, and anisotropic under compression. They neglected tissue anisotropy caused by the collagen network. However, magnetic resonance studies suggest that fluid flow is "directed" by collagen fibres in biological tissues. Therefore, the aim of this study was to express the permeability of cartilage accounting for the microstructural anisotropy and inhomogeneity caused by the collagen fibres. Permeability is predicted to be anisotropic and inhomogeneous, independent of the state of strain, which is consistent with the morphology of the tissue. Looking at the local anisotropy of permeability, we may infer that the arrangement of the collagen fibre network plays an important role in directing fluid flow to optimise tissue functioning.

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