Presented in the present study is a curved beam element including warping degree of freedom, thus having 14 degrees of freedom unlike conventional beam elements having 12 degrees of freedom The element is based on the new theory of thin-walled curved beam by Kang and Yoo. The homogeneous solutions of curved beam equations were used for shape functions in the numerical formulation to achieve excellent convergence. The strong applicability of the developed curved beam element was shown throughout extensive comparative studies where performance of plate / shell and convention straight beam elements were compared.