Evolution and emerging trends of 4D printing: a bibliometric analysis

The emergence of additive manufacturing technology opens up avenues for developing manufacturing industries, and a clear future direction for additive manufacturing is 4D printing. As a young field, it is full of new elements to be researched. In a summary and overview of the current state of research and trends, existing studies are generally manually reviewed and organized. It is susceptible to subjective thinking and knowledge blindness, making it difficult to reflect the current state of research in 4D printing in a comprehensive manner. This paper constructs a visualizing technology identification framework for the global 4D printing research field for manufacturing regarding basic information, technology evolution paths, knowledge structures, and emerging trends through bibliometric techniques and Gephi and CiteSpace software. The purpose of this paper was to provide a systematic, comprehensive, dynamic, quantitative, and objective analysis of the 4D printing research field in order to deepen and refine research in the field, as well as to reveal the overall existing knowledge structure and potential emerging trends. Researchers can use it to understand current research gaps and best practice pathways.