Radiation shielding is a body of material that is placed between a radiation source and an object to be protected with the aim of reducing the intensity of radiation at the object’s location. It can be made from various materials. These materials can be stacked into a multilayer shield or they can be mixed into a composite shield. The main objective of the present study is to review the list of multilayer shield combinations that have been studied and to highlight the findings on material arrangement and consequent buildup factor. The scope of the study is limited to the results of the performed studies. It was observed that there was no clear method on arranging the layer. Buildup factor was also found to be complicated in multilayer shields. Future studies may focus on new multilayer shielding design with unlisted materials, complementary buildup calculations, and applications of metaheuristics in shielding optimization.

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Mixed neutron and gamma radiations are common in many nuclear applications. Several materials can be combined to obtain a composite material that is better for mixed radiation than the individual component materials. The aim of this paper is to investigate the shielding effectiveness of a polyethylene (PE)-based composite with boron and tungsten additives. Several compositions are tested to shield against a 252Cf fission neutron source using an attenuation experiment. The composite is also manufactured using the melt-mixing method of component raw materials. Comparisons are made between the different compositions and the experimental results. Results suggest that the PE composite with 16%wt boron and 16%wt tungsten show the best mixed radiation attenuation as compared to pure PE, PE composite with 25%wt boron, and PE composite with 25%wt tungsten.