An image forming apparatus includes: an image carrier that carries a toner image on a surface thereof while rotating, from which the toner image is transferred to a transfer member; a scraper that comes into contact with an area of the surface of the image carrier from which the toner image has been transferred and that scrapes residue off the image carrier; and a flattening device that flattens a pile of residue that has been scraped off by the scraper and has accumulated.

The disclosure provides a cleaning blade having a blade portion. The blade portion has a blade tip equipped with an edge constituted by a ridge line between the tip surface the blade portion and a blade surface arranged near a photosensitive drum. The blade portion satisfies the following expressions: a50 m, and 0.1b/a0.6 where, when the blade portion is viewed along blade longitudinal direction with the edge in sliding contact with the photosensitive drum for measurement rotating in one direction, a represents a maximum amplitude of the edge which vibrates with the rotation of the photosensitive drum for measurement, and b represents a maximum amplitude when a position separated from the edge by 200 m on the blade surface of the blade tip vibrates with the oscillation of the edge.

A cleaning blade that removes a foreign matter adhering to a rotational body includes: an abutment member; a supporting member that supports the abutment member; and a holding member that holds the supporting member, wherein the abutment member includes: an abutment layer abutting on the rotational body; and an adjustment layer that is a part other than the abutment layer, and an elongation percentage of the adjustment layer is larger than an elongation percentage of the abutment layer in a case where frictional force is applied from the rotational body to the abutment member during rotation of the rotational body.

An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier, a first charging portion and a cleaning portion. The image carrier is configured to be rotatable. The cleaning portion is configured to come into contact with the image carrier to thereby clean the image carrier. The first charging portion is arranged on a downstream side of the cleaning portion in a rotation direction of the image carrier. The first charging portion is configured to charge the image carrier. The first charging portion is provided at the cleaning portion. A voltage is applied to the image carrier by the first charging portion, and the cleaning portion is thereby pressed against the image carrier.

A cleaning member includes: an elastic contact plate that includes a distal end surface with a corner portion to be brought into contact with a cleaning target surface, which is moved with toner attached thereto, of a cleaning target body; and a support plate bonded to the elastic contact plate from a back surface side of the elastic contact plate to support the elastic contact plate, the support plate being more rigid than the elastic contact plate. The distal end surface of the elastic contact plate projects from a distal end surface of the support plate.

A cleaning device, for cleaning an image holding body that rotates while holding a toner image on an outer circumferential surface of the image holding body, includes: a scraping member that scrapes toner sticking to the outer circumferential surface of the image holding body in a rotating state by a distal end of the scraping member being in contact with, in the outer circumferential surface, in a region in which the image holding body moves upward from below; a trapping member in which toner scraped from the outer circumferential surface to fall is trapped; and at least one raising member that raises up toner trapped in the trapping member, toward the distal end of the scraping member.

A cleaning apparatus includes an endless belt configured to bear a toner image, a rotary member configured to be wound around by the belt, and configured to rotate integrally with the belt, a bearing configured to rotatably support the rotary member, a cleaning unit configured to come into contact with a surface of the belt and collect an adhering matter adhered onto the surface, an urging member configured to urge the cleaning unit toward the surface of the belt, and a support member configured from a single member and including a first supporting portion, a second supporting portion, and a third supporting portion. The first supporting portion rotatably supports the belt via the bearing and the rotary member. The second supporting portion pivotably supports the cleaning unit. The third supporting portion supports the urging member.

A restricting member includes a blade portion and a supporting portion. A contact portion is provided at the blade portion, and, in a cross section orthogonal to a longitudinal direction, the contact portion includes a first portion extending in a first direction and a second portion extending toward a free end from an end of the first portion and extending in a second direction. When a region demarcated by connecting an intersection point, the end of the first portion, and an end of the second portion by a straight line is defined as a first region, the intersection point being where an imaginary line intersects an extension line of the first portion in the first direction, an area of the first region is smaller on a longitudinal end portion than on a longitudinal central portion of the blade portion.

Provided is a cleaning blade including an elastic blade having a strip shape, and a supporting member supporting the elastic blade. The cleaning blade is configured to bring a leading end ridgeline portion of the elastic blade into contact with a cleaning target member that is moving, and remove a residual matter from a surface of the cleaning target member. At least a surface layer portion of the elastic blade including the leading end ridgeline portion is formed of a rubber having a hysteresis loss ratio of 15% or less.

At the time of an end of an image forming job (YES of S1), a controller causes a blade and a developing roller to be separated from a photosensitive drum (S2). At that time, the controller controls separation timing of the belt and the developing roller so that the developing roller is separated from the photosensitive drum before a surface position of the photosensitive drum contacted to the developing roller at a contact position at the time of a start of separation of the blade from the photosensitive drum reaches a developing position with the separation of the blade. According to this, even when a liquid accumulation reaches the developing position depending on the separation of the blade, the developing roller has already been separated from the photosensitive drum before the liquid accumulation reaches the developing position and therefore, the liquid accumulation is not collected by the developing roller. When the liquid accumulation is not collected by the developing roller, color mixture due to the liquid accumulation does not occur.