In the quest to produce energy-saving laser beam printers, the most promising solution is a fuser unit with low heat capacity. However, the rise in temperature at the non-paper feeding region causes problems. Canon has developed a low-heat-capacity pressure roller that reduces the required warm-up power. The pressure roller has an elastic layer and an outer layer of PFA (polytetrafluoroethylene). The elastic layer is made of sponge silicone rubber containing thermally conductive filler. In this study, we conducted heat transfer simulations to examine the influence of the physical properties of heat in terms of saving energy and suppressing the temperature rise of the non-paper region. A low heat permeability coefficient reduced the required warm-up power, and high heat conduction effectively suppressed the temperature rise of the non-paper region.
Akira Kato, Yuuki Nishizawa, Yasuo Yoda, Jun Hara, Hisashi Nakahara, Takao Kikutani, Masayuki Suekuni, Toshihiko Ochiai, "Development of Low-Heat-Capacity Pressure Roller" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies and Digital Fabrication (NIP30), 2014, pp 53 - 56, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2014.30.1.art00015_1