Abstract
NURBS (Non Uniform Rational B-Spline) curves and surfaces have been used extensively in Computer Aided Design (CAD) in the last two decades but not in Finite Element Analysis (FEA). Isogeometric analysis [6], introduced in 2005 by Hughes [9] proposes to replace traditional Finite Elements shape functions with volumetric NURBS. Although mathematically this seems to be a minor adjustment, it will drastically change the model life-cycle in FEA.