We have decided to discontinue the publication of preprints on our preprint server end of 2024. The publication culture within mathematics has changed so much due to the rise of repositories such as ArXiV (www.arxiv.org) that we are encouraging all institute members to make their preprints available there. An institute's repository in its previous form is, therefore, unnecessary. The preprints published to date will remain available here, but we will not add any new preprints here.
Using a variational approach we rigorously deduce a nonlinear model for inextensible rods from three-dimensional nonlinear elasticity, passing to the limit as the diameter of the rod goes to zero. The theory obtained is analogous to the Föppl-von Káe;rmán theory for plates. We also derive an asymptotic expansion of the solution and compare it to a similar expansion which Murat and Sili obtained starting from three-dimensional linear elasticity.