Wear Characteristics and Cleaning Ability of Cleaning Blades

Abstract

The general profile of cleaning performance (lifetime of cleaning blades and cleaning ability) of a leading-type blade cleaning system is examined from the viewpoint of rebound resilience (R). The cleaning blade edge is worn out by fatigue caused by stick-slip behavior against the photoreceptor surface. The prediction from the wear equation which takes into account viscoelastic behavior of stick-slip motion agrees well with the results of laboratory tests for fatigue fracture of polyurethane rubber. This causes the blade life to decrease as R increases. On the other hand, one of the reasons that lowers the cleaning ability is the residual toner particles being pushed back against the rotating direction of photoconductive drum, and going through blade during the slip process. Consequently, the cleaning ability is inversely proportional to the slip distance and hence, increases as R increases. For R below 50%, the cleaning ability is insufficient from the beginning in our PPC products. Combining the two factors-blade life and cleaning ability, the cleaning performance is found to peak at about R=50% and to decline as R increases.