Image forming apparatus with recording material conveyance control

An image forming apparatus comprising:

• an image forming portion configured to form a toner image on a recording material;
• a fixing portion configured to fix the toner image formed on the recording material onto the recording material, the fixing portion including a heating member, a heating rotating member that is heated by the heating member, and a pressure rotating member that comes into contact with an outer surface of the heating rotating member to form a nip for nipping and conveying the recording material between the heating rotating member and the pressure rotating member;
• a first temperature detecting portion configured to detect a temperature of a region of the heating member through which a small-sized recording material passes, in a longitudinal direction of the heating member that is perpendicular to a conveyance direction of the recording material;
• a second temperature detecting portion configured to detect a temperature of a region of the heating member outside the small-sized recording material passing region in the longitudinal direction of the heating member;
• a heating control portion configured to control the heating member based on the temperature detected by the first temperature detecting portion;
• and
• a conveyance control portion configured to control the conveyance of the recording material,
• wherein, in a case where the image forming apparatus continuously forms the toner image on a plurality of recording materials and fixes the toner image onto the recording materials, the conveyance control portion can change throughput that is a number of recording materials to be conveyed per unit time by controlling conveyance of the recording materials, and
• wherein the throughput
• (i) is changed from first throughput to second throughput that is lower than the first throughput by reducing a conveyance speed of the recording material at the nip from a first speed to a second speed lower than the first speed when the temperature detected by the second temperature detecting portion exceeds a first threshold, and
• (ii) is changed from the second throughput to a third throughput that is lower than the second throughput by further reducing the conveyance speed of the recording material at the nip from the second speed to a third speed lower than the second speed when the temperature detected by the second temperature detecting portion exceeds a second threshold that is higher than the first threshold.