Roller Covered by a Covering Comprising Knit Fabric and Device Employing Same

In the context of a roller formed such that a surface of a rotating support body that supports a covering comprising knit fabric is covered thereby, a roller having a sin face comprising knit fabric characterized in that this roller is a roller that conveys a sheet-like object or a three-dimensional object, a roller that supplies a sheet-like object or a three-dimensional object, a roller that moves in idler fashion in accompaniment to movement of a sheet-like object or a three-dimensional object, a roller that uses air to carry out cooling or drying while moving a sheet-like object or a three-dimensional object, or a roller that rotates while subjecting a sheet-like object or a three-dimensional object to suction;

• the knit fabric that covers the surface of the roller comprising such rotating support body has gaps possessing air permeability comprising loops of yarn;
• the knit fabric further has steps comprising stripes in a pattern of bands in a knit textile at a front surface or a back surface thereof, and has the stripes in the pattern of bands produced by these steps, and is supported by the surface of the rotating support body so as to be arranged such that the stripes in the pattern of bands at this knit fabric are inclined in roughly perpendicular fashion with respect to a rotational direction;
• this knit fabric has small loop regions and large loop regions at which loops of different size and shape are mutually adjacent in a gauge direction constituting the rotational direction;
• loops at these large loop regions are constituted so as to have little slack as a result of plastic deformation of the yarn;
• loops in the small loop regions adjacent to the large loop regions are constituted in continuous fashion to contain entangled regions of the yarn in a stitch direction constituting an axial direction;
• this knit fabric comprises two domains, these being a domain at the large loop regions comprising the constitution having little slack in the yarn and a domain at the small loop regions containing the entangled regions of the yarn;
• the steps comprising the knit textile being present between the small loop regions and the large loop regions;
• the large loops comprising the constitution having little slack being formed in continuous fashion in the axial direction at a pitch of the small loops at the steps;
• the knit fabric is formed such that it comprises the pattern of bands produced by serial arrangement of the domains of the small loops in the axial direction and by serial arrangement of the domains of the large loops with little slack in the yarn in the rotational direction;
• and this knit fabric is provided as the covering at the surface of the rotating support body.