Patent ID: 7865091

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an intermediate transfer body having prescribed elasticity on a transfer surface onto which a toner image is transferred; plural image carriers which transfer a toner image onto the transfer surface and which are disposed along a movement direction of the transfer surface of the intermediate transfer body; plural development sections which form toner images having a different color from each other with respect to the plural image carriers by using a two-component developing agent made of a toner and a carrier, a carrier particle having an average particle size of not more than 35 Î¼m; and developing agent replenishment sections which replenish a toner and a carrier in the development sections, wherein the transfer surface of the intermediate transfer body has a hardness lower than a hardness of an image carrying surface of each of the image carriers, and is formed so as to have elasticity to such a degree that in the case of sandwiching a carrier particle between the transfer surface and the image carrying surface of the image carrier, the image carrying surface is not scratched, the intermediate transfer body comprises a substrate layer made of resin, an elastic layer, and a surface layer, wherein the elastic layer has a hardness from 20 to 70Â° and a volume resistivity from 10e6 to 10e12 Î©Â·cm.