Cooling Roller Duct for Duplex Printing Heat Dissipation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing image forming apparatuses face issues with cooling performance after toner fixation, leading to potential image defects and sheet sticking, especially during duplex printing, where the temperature of cooling rollers increases, reducing their effectiveness.
Innovation Solution
An image forming apparatus with a conveyance path featuring a roller pair for cooling and an air supply duct that extends orthogonally to the sheet conveyance direction, allowing air to pass through and enhance cooling by both contact and non-contact methods, including an air blowing unit to dissipate heat from the rollers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a cooling roller pair is disposed immediately after the fixing unit to cool the sheet, then image defects and sheet sticking are suppressed, but the temperature of the cooling roller pair gradually increases during duplex printing, reducing cooling effectiveness
Solution Approach 1:
The invention introduces a ventilation path that extends in the width direction (orthogonal to sheet conveyance direction) of the cooling roller pair. This adds a third dimension to the cooling approach, allowing air to flow through the roller pair structure rather than just along the conveyance path, thereby improving heat dissipation effectiveness without increasing roller size.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention uses air flow through the ventilation path to cool the cooling roller pair. By introducing pneumatic cooling (air circulation through the roller structure), the system dissipates heat from the rollers themselves, maintaining their cooling effectiveness during continuous duplex printing operations without requiring larger roller dimensions.
2Reliability
If the size of the cooling roller pair is increased to improve cooling performance, then cooling effectiveness is enhanced, but the size and cost of the image forming apparatus increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of increasing the size of the cooling roller pair in the conveyance direction, the invention utilizes the width direction to create a ventilation path. This allows effective cooling to be achieved by adding a cooling dimension rather than enlarging existing components, thereby maintaining compact apparatus size while improving cooling performance.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention employs air flow through the ventilation path as a cooling medium, replacing the need for larger thermal mass rollers. This pneumatic cooling approach achieves enhanced cooling performance through improved heat transfer efficiency rather than increased roller size, keeping the apparatus compact.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This configuration improves cooling performance by efficiently cooling the sheet and the rollers, reducing the risk of image defects and sheet sticking, while maintaining effective cooling even at higher conveyance speeds.
Implementation Method 1
a ventilation path forming portion and an opening portion continuous with the ventilation path forming portion and facing the conveyance path, the ventilation path forming portion being disposed to face a side of the roller pair opposite to a nip of the roller pair across a center line of the first roller and configured to form a ventilation path configured to allow air to pass therethrough
Data Source
AI summary
An image forming apparatus includes a fixing portion, a conveyance path, a roller pair, and a duct. The roller pair includes a first roller and a second roller, the first roller and the second roller being configured to nip a sheet conveyed in the conveyance path to cool the sheet. The duct is provided to extend in a width direction orthogonal to a sheet conveyance direction. The duct includes a ventilation path forming portion and an opening portion continuous with the ventilation path forming portion and facing the conveyance path, the ventilation path forming portion being disposed to face a side of the roller pair opposite to a nip of the roller pair across a center line of the first roller and configured to form a ventilation path configured to allow air to pass therethrough between the first roller and the ventilation path forming portion.