Introduction

What is Pangolin?

Pangolin is a Grasshopper plugin developed for creating, managing and directly analysing Consteel models, enabling structural design for a wide range of structures, from simple to complex, including freeform designs.

It allows users to define special steel elements such as tapered members, beams with haunches, library sections or configurable macro sections, such as cold-formed sections with stiffeners. It is possible to assign special releases and supports, including linking the elements by using 7DOF definitions.

It also facilitates the use of loads, including uniform or linear surface loads that are distributed onto beams through load transfer surfaces. Pangolin supports defining load combinations from individual load cases organized in load groups.

Typical Grasshopper script using Pangolin that creates a ConSteel model

For model management purposes facilitates the definition of structural groups and model portions.

Ultimately, allows the creation of fully parametric Consteel models. However, models can be imported into Grasshopper via live input from an active Consteel instance or using the .smadsteel loader component. These models can also be compared, aiding in version control.

Once created, a model can be saved as a .smadsteel file for future use or sent directly to Consteel for analysis using its specialized calculation tools. Pangolin enables structural analysis and design within Consteel, including first- and second-order analysis, buckling analysis, and strength and buckling checks. Results are directly accessible in the parametric environment, thus supporting iterative calculations. Also mainly for this purpose, Consteel’s unique scripting language, Descript, can be integrated with Pangolin to enhance automatization.

Typical design workflow for managing ConSteel models