Survey of Bracket Toes

This document contains a survey of the complete set of standardized bracket toes that can be used to create type standard brackets. For each of the toes there is a detailed specification of all parameters controlling its shape.

The parameters may be of four types:

1. Those that are fixed and cannot be affected by the designer when the bracket is instantiated.

2. Those that are individual for each instantiation of the bracket. Thus they need be given by the designer directly or evaluated automatically by the system as a result of how the bracket is depending on the surrounding structure.

3. Those that are of the second category but for which default values can be given in the set-up of the toe to be used if not supplied by the designer or evaluated by the system.

4. Parameters that are normally supposed to be calculated from other parameters but that may be overridden by a value defined in the bracket set-up or by designer input. For an example of this category, see RAD of toe types 3 and 4 below.

for further information about bracket set-up in general and of bracket toes in particular, see TOE Statement.

In the survey below parameters identified as "Fixed" may be set-up in the toe definition, those within brackets are optional, that means, they may be given by the user or may be calculated automatically. Those identified as "Given" should not be part of the bracket set-up.

In most bracket toes with a flange the bracket toe is combined with one end of the flange. In such cases it may be difficult to distinguish between the characteristics of the toe and of the flange end, respectively. In all such cases, however, all radii following the toe height (cf. below) are supposed to be part of the flange end definition, not of the bracket toe definition.