JP5283957B2 - Seal member made of knitted fabric for rotating body of electrophotographic image processing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a seal member capable of preventing a leakage of powder from the end root of a rotor in a rotation axis direction of a powder carrier of an electrophotographic image processor or the like, lowering contact load and reducing cost in a manufacturing process. <P>SOLUTION: The seal member 1 for the end of an image carrier which is a rotor used for the electrophotographic image processor, or the seal member 1 for the end of a powder carrier, is the seal member 1 abutting on the rotor and formed of weft knitting with pile knit material 4 having loops 4b and foundation yarn 3 on the backside. The falling direction of the loops 4a of the pile knit material 4 is adjusted in a fixed direction, and piles 4a of the pile knit material 4 are formed thicker than the foundation yarn 3. The piles 4a are fastened tight by the foundation yarn 3 to prevent the slip-out of fibers forming the piles 4a, and the piles 4a of the pile knit material 4 are allowed to abut on the rotor to prevent a leakage of toner 10 which is powder from the rotor. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&amp;INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a rotating body for sealing so that powder does not leak out of the powder carrier from the end of the rotating body in the direction of the rotation axis of the powder carrier, which is a rotating body of a rotating device that handles powder. Sealing member, particularly a seal that seals the end of a rotating body that is a powder carrier so that toner powder does not leak from the rotating body such as a toner supply roller and a stirring roller of an image forming apparatus in an electrophotographic apparatus It relates to members.

  For sealing members for preventing powder leakage of devices that handle powders so far, sealing members made of felt, sealing members made of warp knitting, sealing members made of pile fabric, and flocking A sealing member has been used. However, a seal member made of a pile fabric is prone to powder leakage from the root as a drawback of pile weave. In addition, in order to make a seal member, the pile is cut, and the manufacturing process of the seal member after the cut In addition, a hair splitting process and a slanting hair process are necessary, and it takes time for these manufacturing processes, which is disadvantageous in terms of cost.

  Further, in the seal member using felt, since the direction of the fiber of the felt is irregular, it is necessary to apply a strong load for sealing. Further, as a knitted seal member, a warp knitting has been proposed, but this also requires a hair splitting process and an oblique hair process like a pile fabric, and is a costly processing method. In addition, it is difficult to reduce the pile (fiber) diameter in order to obtain a desired seal length for a seal member using flocking. For this reason, the initial load is high, and it is used as an end seal member for a soft developing roller. However, there was a problem with the life of the roller because it was easy to catch the roller surface.

  Applicants have applied fiber or warp knitted piles or piles to prevent powder leakage applied as shaft seals to rotating shafts such as powder processing rollers that process toner powder, such as electrophotographic image processing devices. A seal member in which a cut pile obtained by cutting a fabric pile is formed into a cylindrical shape has been developed (see, for example, Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2). However, these are for sealing the rotating shaft, and these fibers or cut piles are provided with the hair ends of the cut piles facing the inner surface of the cylindrical base material. The tip of the pile is directed to the rotation axis of the inner surface of the cylindrical base material, and this does not prevent powder leakage from the axial end of the rotating body of the powder carrier. .

JP 2008-26728 A JP 2008-26729 A

  The problem to be solved by the present invention is that it is possible to prevent leakage of powder from the base of the end of the rotating body in the rotation axis direction of a powder carrier such as an electrophotographic image processing apparatus, and to reduce the contact load. And it is providing the sealing member which can reduce the cost in a manufacturing process.

According to a first aspect of the present invention for solving the above-mentioned problems, in the first aspect of the present invention, the end seal member of the image carrier or the end seal of the powder carrier which is a rotating body used in an electrophotographic image processing apparatus. The seal member that is a member or a shaft seal member and that contacts the rotating body is a flat knitting composed of a pile knitted fabric having a loop and a ground yarn on the back side thereof, and the direction of the loop of the pile knitted fabric is aligned in a certain direction. The pile of the pile knitted fabric is formed thicker than the ground yarn, the pile formed thicker than the ground yarn is fastened with the ground yarn, and the pile forming by the thermal contraction of the pile by heating prevents the fibers forming the pile from coming off. A pile member of the pile knitted fabric is brought into contact with the rotating body to prevent powder leakage from the rotating body.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, a pile loop formed by weft knitting in the sealing member and using shrink yarn as the ground yarn is cut into a cut pile by cutting the tip with a cutting machine, and further opened by soaping. Using a pile knitted fabric made of the above cut pile, the cut pile is brought into contact with an image carrier, a powder carrier, or a cylindrical rotary body, which is a rotating body, to prevent powder leakage. The seal member according to claim 1.

In the invention of claim 3, the knitting yarn used for the pile knitted fabric of the sealing member is made of natural fiber, artificial fiber or chemical fiber, and these fibers are spun to form a knitting yarn, and at least the fiber contained in the knitting yarn used for the knitted fabric The number of fibers in the cut pile after cutting at the tip of the loop of the pile knitted fabric is equal to or more than one type, and the number of fibers having an average inter-fiber pitch in which two or more powder particles of average diameter do not enter 2. The structure according to claim 1, wherein the following equation (1) is satisfied, and the cut pile is brought into contact with an image carrier, a powder carrier, or a rotating body to perform powder sealing. Or it is a sealing member of 2 means.

  According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, when the seal member is used as an end seal member of an image carrier or an end seal member of a developer carrier, the tilt angle of the cut pile after cutting is set in the inner axial direction of the carrier. On the other hand, it is disposed in contact with the end portion of the carrier made of a rotating body in the range of 0 to 70 degrees to prevent the powder from leaking by regulating the flow of the developer or toner that is a powder. It is a sealing member of the means of Claim 3.

  According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the means according to the fourth aspect, wherein an elastic body is adhered and disposed on the back surface of the pile yarn of the pile knitted material, which is the sealing member, so as to have a desired contact load. It is a sealing member.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, the elastic body used for the sealing member is a member that does not cause powder leakage at an acceleration of 30 m / s ² or more which is a vibration condition at least at 50% compression load. This is a sealing member.

  Unlike the seal member in which the root of the conventional seal member made of pile weave is straight hair, the seal member for preventing powder leakage from the root of the rotating body in the rotation axis direction of the present invention is a pile knitted fabric of flat knitting The seal member is formed by cutting the tip of the pile loop so that the fibers of the seal member have a predetermined inclined angle characteristic of the flat knitting, and there are no gaps between the sealed member and the sealed member. A small state can be formed, and powder leakage from the base of the seal member can be prevented. Further, when the seal member of this means is used as the end seal member of the image carrier or powder carrier of the image processing apparatus, the fibers of the seal member formed by cutting abut against the carrier at a predetermined inclined angle. By sealing, a flow of powder can be formed and leakage of the main body can be prevented. Moreover, the number of pile fibers to be sealed can be doubled by cutting the tip of the pile loop of the knitted fabric as described above, and the sealing performance can be improved. As a result, the sealing performance can be improved even with a low contact load, and sealing can be performed with a low contact load that has not been achieved conventionally. Furthermore, by using a member made of an elastic body attached to the seal member, the range of the gap that is the target of the seal portion under the condition that the powder does not leak is expanded, and the use range can be widened.

The best mode for carrying out the present invention will be described below with reference to the tables and drawings. First, as a sealing member 1 such as an end seal member of an image carrier, which is a rotating body 13 used in an electrophotographic image processing apparatus, or an end seal member or shaft seal member of a powder carrier, a manufacturing process of the seal member 1 In order to reduce this, a pile woven fabric 2 was formed from a flat knitting, and this pile knitted fabric 2 was used for the seal member 1 as a configuration comprising a pile knitted fabric 4 having a pile 4a and a ground yarn 3 on the back surface thereof. The sealing member 1 that contacts and seals the rotating body 13 is formed of a flat knitting composed of a pile knitted fabric 4 having a loop 4b and a ground yarn 3 on the back surface side thereof. Further, the fibers that form the pile 4a by aligning the falling direction of the loop 4b of the pile knitted fabric 4 in a certain direction, forming the pile 4a of the pile knitted fabric 4 thicker than the ground yarn 3, and tightening the pile 4a with the ground yarn 3 Is prevented from coming off. In addition, by applying heat, it was possible to increase pile tightening by shrinkage and to prevent the fibers from coming off. Furthermore, the pile member 4a of the pile knitted fabric 4 is brought into contact with the rotating body 13 so as to prevent the powder 10 from leaking from the rotating body 13 as the seal member 1.

  By the way, in the sealing member 1 which consists of the conventional pile weave, the length of the pile 4a is 3 mm or more, and when the predetermined shape is obtained with a punching die, the pile 4a falls down due to a cutting load, and the pile protrudes from the base fabric. 4a was cut, and for this reason, many piles 4a were cut long. However, the seal member 1 in the present invention is the seal member 1 made of a flat knitted pile knitted fabric 2, and the length of the pile 4a can be made shorter than the length of a pile woven pile made of a conventional woven fabric. Therefore, in the present invention, the amount of the portion to be cut and discarded can be reduced.

  The loop 4b of the pile 4a in the pile knitted fabric 4 made of a flat knitting in the above-described sealing member is cut at the tip by a cutting machine, and is formed in the cut pile 4c. Using the pile knitted fabric 4 having the cut pile 4c, the cut pile 4c is brought into contact with the cylindrical rotating body 13 of the image bearing member or the powder bearing member to prevent the powder 10 from leaking from the rotating member. The sealing member according to claim 1. The seal member 1 is configured such that the pile knitted fabric 2 which is a raw material is composed of a flat knitting, so that the loop 4b of the pile 4a of the pile knitted fabric 4 has a certain inclination from the manufacturing stage of the pile knitted fabric 2. Manufactured. With the flat knitting as described above, when the loop 4b of the pile 4a of the pile knitted fabric 4 is sheared, that is, trimmed to form the cut pile 4c, the cut pile 4c is formed to have an inclination in a certain direction. In this way, by having an inclination in a certain direction, it was possible to omit the bevel process that was indispensable in the manufacturing process of the conventional pile fabric. In addition, since the pile knitted fabric 2 is configured so that soaping is easier than the conventional pile woven fabric, in the embodiment of the present invention, the loop 4b of the pile 4a is cut and the cut pile 4c is cooled to a water temperature of 90. It was soaped (washed) with a scouring agent and a softening agent at ℃. This soaping process facilitates the opening of the fibers, and normally, the process of splitting the hair several times can be eliminated, and the manufacturing process can be reduced.

Furthermore, the knitting yarn used for the pile knitted fabric 2 forming the sealing member 1 was formed from natural fibers, artificial fibers or chemical fibers. These fibers are spun into a knitting yarn, at least one type of fiber contained in the knitting yarn used in the pile knitted fabric 2 is used, and the number of fibers in the cut pile 4c after cutting the tip of the loop 4b of the pile knitted fabric 4 is determined. It was configured so that the number of fibers per unit area having an average inter-fiber pitch in which at least two particles of the powder 10 having an average diameter do not enter would satisfy the following formula (1). Therefore, when the seal member 1 having the cut pile 4c is used while being in contact with a rotating body 13 such as an image carrier or a powder carrier, the powder 10 is accurately sealed and the powder 10 leaks out. That was prevented.

Furthermore, in the means of the present invention, since the pile knitted fabric 2 is formed of a flat knitting, the length of the pile 4a can be formed short, and thus the thickness of the seal member 1 can be reduced. Therefore, in order to obtain a seal member 1 that is used in a wide space between the portions to be sealed, an elastic body 3a is attached to the back surface of the ground yarn 3 of the pile knitted fabric 2 that forms the seal member 1. As the elastic body used in this case, an elastic body 3a in which powder 10 such as toner 10a does not leak at an acceleration of 30 m / sec ² which is a vibration condition at 50% compression is used.

  Therefore, the elastic body 3a is selected so as to meet the above vibration conditions in accordance with the necessity of the location to be sealed. Furthermore, the elastic body 3a can be used in a wide range by arbitrarily selecting the necessary load as the elastic body 3a in accordance with the above vibration conditions. The elastic body 3a was formed by selecting polyurethane foam as a foam, Eptsealer (trade name) as a rubber-based foam, or a rubber elastic body arbitrarily according to necessary conditions.

  As an example, the seal member 1 of the present invention and the pile knitted fabric 2 of the seal member 1 will be described below. The material of the pile knitted fabric 2 was made of acrylic, cotton microfiber, and cotton (trade name: Supima). Further, the ground yarn 3 which is a ground yarn constituting the pile knitted fabric 2 was a knitted fabric made of polyester yarn (trade name: Exlan, 15% shrink yarn). The pile knitted fabric 4 constituting the pile knitted fabric 2 was formed from a plating pile in which the pile 4a appeared on the front side. In this case, the length of the pile pile 4a was 2.8 mm. A pile knitted fabric 2 composed of the pile knitted fabric 4 and the ground yarn 3 as the plating pile was formed by a flat knitting. A pile knitted fabric 4 made of a looped pile 4a is formed by double knitting on the back side of the knitted fabric of the ground yarn 3 which is a ground yarn, and these are shown in FIGS. FIG. 1A is a cross-sectional view of the stitches viewed from the side, and the pile 4a is knitted on the knitted fabric of the base yarn 3 so that the tip of the loop 4b protrudes. FIG. 1B is a plan view seen from the pile 4a side, and a cut pile 4c shown on the left of the figure is obtained by cutting the tip of the loop 4b of the pile 4a. FIG. 2 is a knitted fabric and a pile 4a of the ground yarn 3 of the pile knitted fabric 2. FIG. 2 (a) is a side view and FIG. 2 (b) is a plan view. FIG. 3 shows a pile knitted fabric 2 which is a knitted fabric of the ground yarn 3 and a cut pile 4c of the pile 4a. FIG. 3 (a) is a side view and FIG. 3 (b) is a plan view.

  The seal member 1 made of the above-described pile knitted fabric 2 was manufactured by performing the following processing steps on the pile knitted fabric 2. First, the surface of the pile knitted fabric 2 is aligned by shearing in Step 1 and treated with a scouring agent and a softening agent at a water temperature of 90 ° C. in Step 2 to eliminate the fraying removal and splitting steps. Subsequently, it dried at about 100 degreeC by the process 3, and made it heat-shrink. Further, spray coating was performed in Step 4 and the base was treated with an acrylic resin. After this, the inspection was performed. On the other hand, the manufacturing process of the sealing member formed from the pile weave which is the conventional woven fabric will be briefly described in order of reference. This pile woven fabric is sheared in step 1, backing of the ground treatment for fixing the base fabric in step 2, and splitting the hair several times in step 3. Further, the process 4 includes the step of performing oblique hair several times, and finally the process 5 includes the process of aligning the height by shearing.

  The effect of preventing leakage of the toner 10 of the seal member 1 formed from the flat knitted pile knitted fabric 2 comprising the above-described steps in the present invention was confirmed by an experiment by the following method. First, as shown in FIG. 4, the toner 10 is put in the container 7, the container 7 is closed with the cover 8, the seal member 1 is disposed at the outlet of the lower part of the cover 8, and the container 7 is mounted on the angle 6. And vibrated by the vibrator 5. The acceleration due to the vibration of the container 7 was measured by a sensor 9 attached to the container 7. In this test, the height of the gap at the bottom of the cover 8 to which the seal member 1 is attached is changed to change the load applied to the seal member 1 to obtain the repulsive load of the seal member 1, which is a powder toner (approximately 6 μ diameter). ) It was set as the load required for the sealing performance of 10 leakage prevention. The acceleration of the vibration of the container 7 from the vibrator 5 at each load is changed, and the effect of the sealing property of preventing the leakage of the toner 10 in the difference in the mounting height of the cover 8, that is, the difference in the load necessary for preventing leakage. confirmed. The experimental results are shown in Table 1. From these experimental results, it was verified that the flat knitted seal member can seal the toner 10 at an extremely low load.

Next, an experiment was conducted to prevent leakage of toner 10 and other developer due to a difference in the mounting angle of the cut pile 4c of the seal member 1 with respect to the rotation axis direction. In this confirmation experiment, the difference in the mounting angle of the cut pile 4c when the contact load is 13.2 kg, that is, the angle of the falling direction of the cut pile 4c is set to a range of 0 degree to 90 degrees with respect to the inner axial direction of the carrier. The tip of the pile 4c is disposed so as to abut the end of the carrier as a rotating body, thereby restricting the flow of the developer as the powder and preventing the powder from leaking. And went. As a result, as shown in Table 2 below, if the mounting angle was within 0 to 70 degrees, the acceleration due to vibration was within 30 m / sec ² , and the leakage prevention effect was excellent with ◯. In Table 1, Δ is good and x is not good.

Next, the sealing member 1 made of the pile knitted fabric 2 of the present invention (density of the knitted fabric: 450,000 pieces / square inch) and the sealing member 11 made of the conventional pile fabric (woven fabric density: 450,000 pieces / square inch) and the conventional case. For the sealing member 12 made of a pile fabric (woven fabric density: 650,000 / 1 square inch), the toner 10 is put in the container 7 by the same experiment as described above, and the vibration experiment is performed by the vibrator 5. FIG. 5 shows the relationship between the load required for the seal and the vibration. As shown in FIG. 5, in the seal member 1 made of the pile knitted fabric 2 of the present invention, the load necessary for sealing the toner 10 at a vibration acceleration of 14 m / sec ² is 0.7 g / cm ² and the vibration acceleration is 65 m / sec. ^The load necessary for sealing the toner in No. ² was 50 g / cm ² , and increased substantially linearly. The load necessary for the seal was an extremely low and extremely low load.

On the other hand, in the sealing member 1 made of a conventional pile fabric, the load required for toner sealing at a vibration acceleration of 28 m / sec ² is 20 g / cm ² , which increases in a quadratic curve, and the vibration acceleration is 35 m. The load necessary for sealing the toner at / sec ² was 322 g / cm ² , and the load necessary for the seal was extremely high with only a slight increase in vibration acceleration.

Further, in the sealing member 2 made of a conventional pile fabric, the load required for toner sealing at a vibration acceleration of 32 m / sec ² is 36 g / cm ² , which increases in a quadratic curve, and the vibration acceleration is 53 m / sec. ^The load necessary for toner sealing in ² is 496 g / cm ² , and the acceleration of vibration is only slightly increased if not as high as that of the conventional seal member 1, and the load necessary for sealing is also extremely high. It was.

Therefore, it has been found that the load that can withstand vibration of 30 m / sec ² can be achieved when the unit load is 50 g / cm ² or less in the sealing member 1 of the present invention. On the other hand, the conventional pile fabric seal member 12 requires 350 g / cm ² or more, and the conventional pile fabric seal member 11 cannot achieve this.

Next, the repulsive load of the seal member 1 and the toner 10 when the tape made of the elastic body 3a is bonded to the back surface of the knitted fabric 3 of the pile knitted fabric 2 of the seal member 1 of the means of the invention according to claim 5 of the present invention. The sealing performance was tested by applying a vibration acceleration of 30 m / sec ² and the results are shown in FIG. FIG. 6 shows the characteristics of the sealing member 1 made of a pile knitted fabric 2 with an elastic body attached thereto. The elastic body 3a to be bonded to the back surface of the ground yarn 3 of the pile knitted fabric 2 of the sealing member 1 is a material that does not leak powder at an acceleration of 30 m / sec ² which is a vibration condition at 50% compression. The body 3a is arbitrarily selected from a polyurethane foam as a foam, Eptosear (trade name) as a rubber thread foam, or a rubber elastic body. It was found that by using this elastic body 3a, the usage range under conditions where no leakage occurs at an acceleration of 30 m / sec ² can be widened.

It is the figure of the plating pile which the pile knitted fabric became double on the back surface side of a ground yarn, (a) is sectional drawing seen from the side part, (b) is the top view seen from the pile side. . The ground yarn and pile which show a pile knitted fabric, (a) is a side view, (b) is a top view. It is the ground yarn and cut pile which show a pile knitted fabric, (a) is a side view, (b) is a top view. It is a figure which shows the vibration apparatus which tests the sealing performance of a sealing member. It is a graph which shows the relationship between the load required for the seal | sticker shown by contrasting this invention product of a sealing member, and a conventional product, and a vibration. It is a graph which shows the characteristic of the sealing member which stuck the elastic body.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Seal member 2 Pile knitted fabric 3 Ground yarn 3a Elastic body 4 Pile knitted fabric 4a Pile 4b Loop 4c Cut pile 5 Exciter 6 Angle 7 Container 8 Cover 9 Sensor 10 Powder 10a Toner 11 Pile fabric sealing member (fabric density: 450,000 / square inch)
12 Pile fabric sealing member (Fabric density: 650,000 pieces / square inch)
13 Rotating body

Claims (6)

An end seal member of an image carrier that is a rotating body used in an electrophotographic image processing apparatus, an end seal member or a shaft seal member of a powder carrier, and the seal member that contacts the rotating body is a pile having a loop. A flat knitting consisting of a knitted fabric and ground yarn on the back side of the knitted fabric, the pile knitting loops are aligned in a certain direction, and the pile of the pile knitted fabric is made thicker than the ground yarn and thicker than the ground yarn The pile pile is tightened with ground yarn and the pile is tightened by heat shrinkage of the pile by heating to prevent the fibers forming the pile from coming off, and the pile of the pile knitted fabric is brought into contact with the rotating body to remove the powder from the rotating body. A sealing member characterized by preventing leakage. A pile knitted fabric comprising a cut pile formed by weft knitting in the sealing member and using a shrink yarn as a ground yarn, cutting the tip portion with a cutting machine to form a cut pile, and further opening by soaping 2. The seal according to claim 1, wherein the cut pile is brought into contact with an image carrier, a powder carrier, or a cylindrical rotor as a rotary body to prevent powder leakage. Element. The knitting yarn used for the pile knitted fabric of the sealing member is made of natural fiber, artificial fiber or chemical fiber, and these fibers are spun to form a knitted yarn. The number of fibers in the cut pile after cutting at the tip of the loop of the pile knitted fabric is configured to be the number of fibers having an average inter-fiber pitch in which two or more powder particles of average diameter do not enter, and the following (1) 3. The sealing member according to claim 2, wherein the seal member satisfies the formula, and the cut pile is brought into contact with an image carrier, a powder carrier or a rotating body to seal the powder.

  When the seal member is used as an end seal member of an image carrier or an end seal member of a developer carrier, the inclination angle of the cut pile after cutting is set to 0 to 70 degrees with respect to the inner axial direction of the carrier. 4. The powder according to claim 3, wherein the powder is prevented from leaking by restricting the flow of the developer or toner which is a powder by being disposed in contact with the end of the carrier made of a rotating body in the range. Seal member.   The seal member according to claim 4, wherein an elastic body is attached and disposed on the back surface of the ground yarn of the pile knitted fabric that is the seal member, and is configured to have a desired contact load. 6. The seal member according to claim 5, wherein the elastic body used for the seal member is a member that does not cause powder leakage at an acceleration of 30 m / s ² or more, which is a vibration condition, at least at a compression load of 50%.

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