Patent ID: 7111840

Claim:
A sheet feeding apparatus comprising: a plate on which sheets are stacked; a sheet feeding roller which feeds out the sheet from the plate, wherein said sheet feeding roller comprises a frictional member having an elasticity in contact with the sheet and a holding member disposed at a rotary shaft for holding fixedly a front side portion of the frictional member in the rotational direction and holding a rear side portion of the friction member in the rotational direction to be elastically transformed; and a spring which provides a contact pressure between the sheet stacked on the plate and the sheet feeding roller; wherein said sheet feeding roller feeds a sheet by rotation in pressed contact with stacked sheets on said plate by an outer peripheral surface of the frictional member, and at first the sheet stacked on the plate is fed by said fixed front side portion of the frictional member of said sheet feeding roller and subsequently the sheet is fed by said transformable rear side portion of the frictional member wherein in the case of feeding a sheet of high density, a distance from a rotary center of the sheet feeding roller to an outer peripheral surface of a rear side portion of the frictional member is made smaller so that the contact pressure is large, and in the case of feeding a sheet of low density, a distance from the rotary center of the sheet feeding roller to the outer peripheral surface of the rear side portion of the frictional member is made larger so that the contact pressure is small.