Plastics in the tunnel question?

[Pigfish]

Hello all. Its been a long, loooong time since I have posted on this forum. Sorry but work, school and falling in (and out) of love (twice) have kept me extremly busy the last couple of years. More then I can handle some days.

Anyway as we know on nuke boats there is a 'tunnel' seperating the reactor end of the boat from the 'front of the boat'. For sheilding and safety to the crew. This tunnel is heavely sheilded with lead, tungsten, H2O and diesal fuel etc. It is also sheilded with a plastic(?) or polymar(?) type of plastic or resin.

My question is what is the type of plastic or more importantly what is this "plastic" sheilding for? Alpha waves?

I am in school at present and my instructor used to do NDT work on British submarines in the 60's.

When I asked him this question he stood by his non disclousure agreement but I am sure I have either heard or read about it in detail some where in the past.

Can anyone help?

One day I WILL get back into SC/DW. Just need the time.