Patent ID: 7055817

Claim:
A friction wheel singler for singling sheet material, comprising: a sheet magazine for receiving a stack of sheets, a singling cylinder having one or more friction elements for contacting and conveying a sheet to be singled out of the sheet magazine, and a retaining device forming with the singling cylinder a singling gap through which sheets to be singled out of the sheet magazine are conveyed one by one, the retaining device having a circumferential friction area for contacting the sheets to be singled out of the sheet magazine, the friction area defined as half of the total circumferential area of the retaining device, the friction elements of the singling cylinder and the friction areas of the retaining device have friction material with substantially the same coefficient of friction, in the singling gap a first contact area located between the friction elements of the singling cylinder and a sheet to be singled is substantially greater than a second contact area located between the friction areas of the retaining device and the sheet to be singled, the friction elements of the singling cylinder are formed as friction segments over a limited circumference in the singling cylinder, and in the singling gap third contact areas of the retaining device and/or the singling cylinder with the sheet to be singled have a substantially lower coefficient of friction than the friction material of the friction elements of the singling cylinder and the friction areas of the retaining device.