Bibliometric Analysis of Research Progress and Perspectives of Deep Underground Rockburst Using Knowledge Mapping Method

In order to ensure the successful construction and stable operation of deep engineering projects, significant progress has been made in researching deep underground rockburst issues from various perspectives. However, there have been few systematic analyses of the overall research status of deep rockburst to date. In this study, a bibliometric approach using CiteSpace software (version 6.2.R3) was employed to visualize and analyze knowledge maps of 353 research articles on deep rockburst collected from the Web of Science core database from 1996 to 2022. The results show that the number of publications experienced exponential growth after an initial stage of budding and peaked in 2016. In terms of collaboration, China plays an absolute central role. The top three highly cited journals were the International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences , Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering , and Tunneling and Underground Space Technology . In the keyword co-occurrence analysis, the keyword “prediction” had the highest frequency of occurrence in the past two decades, indicating it as the major research focus in deep rockburst studies. The keyword co-occurrence clustering analysis revealed eight clusters, including conventional criteria, acoustic emission, geology, seismic velocity tomography, dynamic disturbance, and others, representing the primary research topics. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the current research progress and development trends of deep underground rockburst, helping to understand the key areas of focus in this field and providing potential prospects for future investigations for researchers and practitioners.