Patent ID: 7971988

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: an endless conveyance belt having an outer periphery surface which serves as a conveyance surface for a recording medium; and a recording head for ejecting ink onto a recording medium from a nozzle surface opposing the conveyance surface of said conveyance belt, wherein a recording medium retained on the conveyance surface of said conveyance belt is discharged to a discharge unit by means of a conveyance force thereof, a sticking layer for sticking to the recording medium is formed on the outer periphery surface of said conveyance belt, and until a leading edge and a termination edge opposite the leading edge of the recording medium conveyed on said conveyance belt passes a region opposing the nozzle surface of said recording head, a sticking force exerted from the sticking layer of said conveyance belt onto the recording medium is set to be greater than the weight of a part of the recording medium protruding from a termination edge of a retaining portion that retains the recording medium, to downstream side in a conveying direction, wherein F*W/x>ρ*W*La is satisfied when said sticking force is defined by F*W/x while said weight is defined by ρ*W*La, where F: force necessary when a test recording medium having a width dimension x is peeled off from said sticking layer at an angle of 90 degrees, W: width dimension of said recording medium in a direction perpendicular to said conveying direction, ρ: weight of said recording medium per unit area, and La: length of a part of the recording medium protruding from the termination edge of said retaining portion toward the downstream side in the conveying direction in a state that the termination edge of said recording medium aligns with the termination edge of the region opposing the nozzle surface of said recording head.