Patent ID: 6920304

Claim:
A relief smoothing apparatus that smoothes an image on a recording sheet which is obtained by forming a polyolefin resin coating layer on at least one side of a base sheet and forming a receiving layer, in which a toner image is infiltrated, on at least one side of the base sheet, comprising: plural tension rolls including a first roll; an endless belt stretched over the plural tension rolls in a rotatable manner; a second roll that comes into press contact with the first roll through the endless belt to form a nip portion; and a heating source that heats at least one of the first roll and the second roll, the recording sheet having the receiving layer side which is brought into close contact with the endless belt at the nip portion and is peeled off from the endless belt after being transported and cooled together with the endless belt, wherein provided that a surface temperature of the first roll is represented by Tn [° C.], a Vicat softening temperature of the polyolefin resin is represented by Tv [° C.], and a time required for the recording sheet to pass through the nip portion is represented by t [sec], the following relationship is established: ( Tv +55)×(1+{fraction (1/100)} t )≧ Tn ≧( Tv +20)/(1+{fraction (1/100)} t )[° C.].