  Tchebycheffian splines are smooth piecewise functions whose pieces are drawn
from (possibly different) Tchebycheff spaces, a natural generalization of
algebraic polynomial spaces. They enjoy most of the properties known in the
polynomial spline case. In particular, under suitable assumptions,
Tchebycheffian splines admit a representation in terms of basis functions,
called Tchebycheffian B-splines (TB-splines), completely analogous to
polynomial B-splines. A particularly interesting subclass consists of
Tchebycheffian splines with pieces belonging to null-spaces of
constant-coefficient linear differential operators. They grant the freedom of
combining polynomials with exponential and trigonometric functions with any
number of individual shape parameters. Moreover, they have been recently
equipped with efficient evaluation and manipulation procedures. In this paper,
we consider the use of TB-splines with pieces belonging to null-spaces of
constant-coefficient linear differential operators as an attractive substitute
for standard polynomial B-splines and rational NURBS in isogeometric Galerkin
methods. We discuss how to exploit the large flexibility of the geometrical and
analytical features of the underlying Tchebycheff spaces according to
problem-driven selection strategies. TB-splines offer a wide and robust
environment for the isogeometric paradigm beyond the limits of the rational
NURBS model.
