An Introduction to Isogeometric Analysis with Application to Thermal Conduction

In this report, we present a new method, namely isogeometric analysis, proposed by T. Hughes and his collaborators, whose objective is to combine Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools and Finite-Element (FE) solvers into a single software entity. This consists in replacing grids by parametric surfaces and volumes to define the integration elements used in a variational formulation. This approach allows to define a computational domain that matches exactly the geometry of the problem, whatever the number of degrees of freedom. High-order, h- and p-adaptive schemes, as well as hierarchical solving strategies can be constructed. After presenting the method and comparing with classical finite-element approach, some numerical experiments are carried out using a thermal conduction test-case.