Gripping device for gripping sheet material

A gripping device for gripping and transporting a sheet-material stack, which has at least two gripping elements for gripping a sheet-material stack disposed between the gripping elements, which are movable toward each other in order to grip the sheet-material stack through a grip-clamping, wherein the gripping elements respectively have at least one gripping finger which can be laid against a stack end-sheet located at that end of the sheet-material stack facing the respective gripping element such that the gripping finger aereally contacts the respective stack end-sheet, wherein at least one of the gripping fingers of at least one of the gripping elements is tiltable from a starting position (A), in which the gripping finger is oriented substantially parallel to the surface of the stack end-sheet facing it, into a tilted position (K), in which the gripping finger is inclined toward the surface of the stack end-sheet facing it,

• wherein the gripping device has a stopping mechanism for stopping the relative motion of the gripping elements, in which the drive of the relative motion is automatically stopped as soon as an opposing force of the sheet-material stack generated upon the grip-clamping exceeds a certain value, and
• wherein the gripping device has a belt which is mechanically coupled with one of the gripping elements, in order to move this gripping element relative to the other gripping element of the gripping device through the belt motion and in order to grip the sheet-material stack disposed between the two gripping elements through a grip-clamping, wherein the stopping mechanism includes that the belt tension is monitored by a sensor which is arranged to stop the drive of the belt motion when a certain belt tension is exceeded.