Trend of R&D publications in Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors: A Study using INIS and Other Databases

Digital databases INIS (1970-2002), INSPEC (1969-2002), Chemical Abstracts (1977-2002), ISMEC (1973-June2002), Web of Sciences (1974-2002), and Science Citation Index (1982-2002), were used for comprehensive retrieval of bibliographic details of research publications on Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) research. Among the countries contributing to PHWR research, India (having 1737 papers) is the forerunner followed by Canada (1492), Romania (508) and Argentina (334). Collaboration of Canadian researchers with researchers of other countries resulted in 75 publications. Among the most productive researchers in this field, the first 15 are from India. Top three contributors to PHWR publications with their respective authorship credits are: H.S. Kushwaha (106), Anil Kakodkar (100) and V. Venkat Raj (76). Prominent interdomainary interactions in PHWR subfields are: Specific nuclear reactors and associated plants with General studies of nuclear reactors (481), followed by Environmental sciences (185), and Materials science (154). Number of publications dealing with Geosciences aspect of environmental sciences are 141. Romania, Argentina, India and Republic of Korea have used mostly (=75%) non-conventional media for publications. Out of the 4851 publications, 1228 have been published in 292 distinct journals. Top most journals publishing PHWR papers are: Radiation Protection and Environment (continued from: Bulletin of Radiation Protection since 1997), India (115); Nuclear Engineering International, UK (84); and Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, USA (68)