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Introduction

VirtuCath™ helps you refine deflectable micro-catheter designs in hours instead of weeks. Define the layer stackup, characterize section stiffness, drive a digital twin under virtual pullwire actuation, and back-out the pre-reflow extrusions you need to procure, all on your local workstation, with no cloud dependency.

What VirtuCath does​

VirtuCath combines four engines under one interface:

  • Composite-mechanics calculator. Predicts section stiffness (EI, GJ, EA) and failure-mode KPIs — elastic instability radius, burst pressure, crush pressure — from your layer stackup and material choices, using Classical Lamination Theory.
  • Physics engine-powered dynamic simulator. Turns the static design into a digital twin you can deflect, observe, and instrument. Real-time tip position, bend radius, ovalization, and pullwire tension feed back as you drive virtual pullwires.
  • Flowdown calculator. Backs out the raw extrusion dimensions, manufacturing tolerances, and heat-shrink ratios needed to actually build the design.
  • Response Surface Analysis. Sweeps virtual Design of Experiments over your inputs and renders the resulting response surface so you can find the design-space sweet spot before committing to a prototype.

Together these let you evaluate hundreds of design variants in an afternoon, so the first physical build is anchored to calculated data rather than intuition.

What VirtuCath is not​

VirtuCath is a design aid, not a finite-element analysis package. The simulation makes the following modeling assumptions:

  • Material behavior is primarily linear and idealized.
  • Axial and shear deformation of catheter sections are not modeled, on the assumption that axial and shear stiffness dominate over bending and torsional stiffness.
  • Complex non-linear phenomena — large elastic deformations, kinking, material hysteresis, intricate contact mechanics — that a full FEA package would capture are not modeled here.

VirtuCath is intended as a design aid and for preliminary simulation purposes only. The results generated by this software are based on a simplified physics model and should not be considered a substitute for comprehensive physical prototyping, rigorous testing, or formal Verification and Validation (V&V) activities required for medical devices or other critical applications.

Users should exercise their own professional judgment when interpreting the simulation results and are solely responsible for the design, testing, and validation of any physical product based on or informed by the use of this software. VirtuCath, LLC disclaims any and all liability for decisions made or actions taken based on the information provided by VirtuCath.