Patent ID: 8708456

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a carriage including a recording head that discharges liquid droplets for forming an image onto a recording medium; a rail that supports the carriage in such a manner that the carriage reciprocates; a fixing part that fixes the rail in the image forming apparatus; and an air stream creation part that creates an air stream inside the fixing part, wherein the fixing part is hollow, and has a first inflow opening part and a discharge opening part, the fixing part is disposed on a first side of the rail and the carriage is disposed on another side of the rail that is opposite to the first side on which the fixing part is disposed, and the air stream is created inside the fixing part by the air stream creation part by drawing air from external to the fixing part to flow through the first inflow opening part to inside of the fixing part and causes the air inside of the fixing part to flow through the discharge opening part to outside of the fixing part.