Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Koujirou Izumidate

Shuji Saito

Ken Yokoyama

Masatsugu Toyonori

Noriaki Egawa

Hiroshi Kita

Takashi Endo

Takayuki Tanaka

Keisuke Ishizumi

Kazushi Ino

Yasuhiro Matsuo

Kouichi Uchida

Seiji Nakahara

Kosuke Saito

An image forming apparatus includes an intermediate transfer member. The intermediate transfer member includes a layer made of an acrylic copolymer. A plurality of grooves is formed in the layer along a moving direction of the intermediate transfer member across a width direction of the intermediate transfer member. A groove distance that is an average distance between adjoining grooves of the plurality of grooves in the width direction of the intermediate transfer member is 2 &#x3bc;m or more and 10 &#x3bc;m or less.

Image forming apparatus that improves contact member durability and suppresses occurrence of cleaning failure

An image forming apparatus including: a movable intermediate transfer member onto which a toner image borne by an image bearing member is to be transferred; a detection unit configured to irradiate the toner image on the intermediate transfer member with light to detect reflected light; and a control unit configured to adjust a condition for forming the toner image based on a detection result of the detection unit, wherein a plurality of grooves extending along a movement direction of the intermediate transfer member are formed in a surface of the intermediate transfer member in a width direction intersecting the movement direction, and wherein grooves, formed within a range of the intermediate transfer member to which the light is irradiated by the detection unit, among the plurality of grooves are formed so that intervals each between adjacent grooves with respect to the width direction are regularly changed within a predetermined range.

Image forming apparatus and intermediate transfer member

An endless-shaped electrophotographic belt with a cleaning blade provides improvement in transfer remaining toner wiping properties. The electrophotographic belt has an endless shape including, on an outer circumferential surface thereof, grooves and lands. The grooves extend in a circumferential direction of the belt and the lands are positioned between the grooves. The belt further has on the outer circumferential surface, one or more convex portion(s) between at least one of the grooves and one of the lands adjacent to the one of the grooves, and in a cross section of the belt in a direction orthogonal to a direction of which the grooves extend, the convex portion(s) projects more than the lands.

Electrophotographic belt and electrophotographic image forming apparatus

Provided is an electrophotographic belt sustainably excellent in toner removal performance. The electrophotographic belt has an endless shape and has grooves on an outer surface thereof, each of the grooves extending in a circumferential direction and being in non-parallel with the circumferential direction, and the outer surface is composed only of a first region in which the number of the grooves in a direction orthogonal to the circumferential direction is 'n' and a second region in which the number of the grooves in the direction orthogonal to the circumferential direction is larger than the 'n', the first region and the second region being arranged alternately in the circumferential direction, and the &#x201c;n&#x201d; being an integer of 1 or more.

An intermediate transfer belt includes, on a surface in contact with a photosensitive drum and a cleaning blade, a plurality of grooves formed along a moving direction of the intermediate transfer belt in a width direction which intersects the moving direction of the intermediate transfer belt. Further, the intermediate transfer belt includes a plurality of first regions in which adjacent grooves in the width direction are arranged at a predetermined interval, and a second region which is positioned between the plurality of first regions and in which an interval between adjacent grooves in the width direction is different from the predetermined interval. The second region is arranged outside, in the width direction of the intermediate transfer belt, a range in which a patch toner is to be formed in concentration correction.

Growing community of inventors

Chiba, Japan

Koujirou Izumidate