Firehole Products
Partner Products
"Firehole offers one of the most impressive and unique methods of composite evaluation we've seen - Helius:MCT™ - a product that lets us see exactly how composites perform under extreme loads. Tools like this allow us to maximize performance and optimize weight while still maintaining safety margins."
Mark Bishop
Senior Design Engineer
Farr Yacht Design
"A simple, robust and predictive simulation tool, able to accurately identify the failure and the post-failure behavior of general composite structure was an analyst's dream until now. The innovative Firehole multi-scale approach provides an outstanding value to our customers because of its proven effectiveness and sound physical basis."
Simone Ragionieri,
SmartCAE General Manager
"Helius:MCT provides a unique and powerful analysis toolset. The integration with ABAQUS is seamless and user-friendly. The increased resolution of material failure mechanisms results in the ability to more efficiently optimize composite structures."
Christopher T. Key
Applied Technologies Group,
Hi-Test Laboratories, Inc.
Products 
Superior Technology
Helius:MCT is based on Multicontinuum Technology (MCT), which provides efficient stresses and strains for the fiber and matrix constituents of a composite lamina. In doing so, the MCT modeling methodology provides an unsurpassed combination of accuracy and efficiency for predicting damage evolution and material failure in composites.
Traditional methods used for composites failure prediction (e.g. Tsai-Wu, Hashin, or Hill) treat a composite lamina as a 
homogeneous solid with uniform properties throughout. This homogenization has led to limited success in failure prediction of composites because the constituent stress state, not the composite (i.e., homogenized) stress, drives failure. By analyzing fiber and matrix stresses separately, Helius:MCT inherently leads to more-accurate composite-failure predictions.
Superior Efficiency
The superior efficiency of Helius:MCT is inherent in the multicontinuum approach: stresses and strains are extracted using minimal computational effort. The MCT algorithm only increases the run time for a typical structural analysis by 2 to 3%. This efficiency is possible because prior to the analysis, the relationships that link the constituent stresses and strains to composite stresses and strains are quickly determined from micromechanics modelling using industry standard composite input data (lamina strengths and stiffnesses) by the Helius:MCT Material Manager.
Read more about Multicontinuum Technology
Proven Results
- Participation in WWFE-I and WWFE-II
- Only failure analysis group invited to participate in all 3 WWFE's
- Internal validation to sub-scale testing
- AFRL Biaxial Loaded Composite Cruciform Program
- AFRL Unlined Cryogenic Composite Pressure Vessel Program
- ARFL Large Structures Failure Test Program
- Dozens of Technical Publications, including AIAA, SAMPE, industry journals, etc.