Conveying roller and method of making the same

Abstract

A conveying roller facilitates conveyance of a sticky material in the form of sheet or web to be conveyed. An outer peripheral layer of the convey roller is formed on its rolling surface with a plurality of pits at a predetermined occupancy ratio defined by an occupancy ratio of a total area occupied by all of the pits to an area of the rolling surface of the outer peripheral layer. The outer peripheral layer is formed on the rolling surface thereof with a plurality of pits at the occupancy ratio set depending on a degree of stickiness expressed by the sheet material to achieve peel properties of the outer peripheral layer which is compatible with the stickiness of the sheet material and thereby to prevent the sticky sheet material from twining around the conveying roller.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.