Serving the Numerical Simulation community since 1989 
Building an agentic system on top of legacy finite element modeling practices is like building a skyscraper on quicksand. Any team serious about reaching these capability levels must treat the soundness of numerical simulation as the highest priority, not an afterthought.
Contrary to various claims, IGA is not a new paradigm in the numerical approximation of partial differential equations; it is simply an alternative implementation of the p-version of the finite element method. IGA is one possible implementation of the p-version of the finite element method. Its distinguishing features are: (a) it retains the CAD geometry, (b) the basis functions are the same as those used for CAD representation, typically B-splines or NURBS, and (c) it provides for the enforcement of the inter-element continuity of the derivatives of the basis functions.
A mathematician delivered a keynote presentation at an engineering conference some years ago. At the coffee break, following the presentation, a highly respected senior developer of a legacy finite element code, remarked: “I do not understand why the speaker was so worried about singularities. We never see them.”
The remark highlights the lack of a common language between the pre-scientific notion of finite element modeling and finite element analysis, which is a branch of applied mathematics. Read why mathematicians and engineers alike should “worry” about singularities.
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