This block for protecting fixed or floating works against the impact of moving liquid masses, for example waves, comprises a pair of convergent elongated elements forming together a kind of bow directed towards the wavefront to be deadened, and one or more complementary elements connected to said bow to constitute seating means for the complete block. The free ends of these elements are provided with protrusions or the like, preferably of substantially frustoconical configuration, for interlocking the blocks disposed in any suitable order or arrangement.

For use as a structural unit in a variety of coastal and other civil engineering works, a formed block or pile of concrete or other material is provided which comprises a conical body and a cylindrical leg extending coaxially from the vertex of the body. Offshore breakwaters can be built by laying a multiplicity of such funnel-shaped blocks into one or, usually, two or more superposed horizontal layers, with each block having its leg oriented downwardly. At least the lowermost layer of blocks are buried directly into the seabed, and the upper layer or layers of blocks are installed with or without use of a support structure serving to prop up each block.

A method of producing shaped concrete blocks for hydraulics, such blocks having two spaced arms formed at right angles to each other and spaced from each other and a web interconnecting the centers of said arms, wherein said block is formed by concreting in a dismountable shuttering with the arms located horizontally and the web vertically, it being possible to use a shuttering having a stationary, lower shuttering part which has a horizontal longitudinal axis for forming substantially half of one arm of the block and two shuttering parts separatable from the formed block by lateral movement.

A seawall barrier comprising a relatively massive elongate wire cable reinforced concrete structure with a shank and diverging feet that has reinforcing cables embedded in the structure barrier and being threaded through a reinforcing member at the feet portion of the structure.

A construction element for forming breakwaters. The element includes a massive inner core that is trapezoidal in configuration with the longest base of the trapezoid disposed downwardly. The inner core is supported by four legs. The legs extend above the upper surface, below the lower surface and beyond the outer periphery of the inner core so that the core will be spaced apart from any surface on which it rests, regardless of which face of the construction element is disposed downwardly. The longitudinal cross section of the legs is also trapezoidal with the longest base downward so as to enhance stability. Construction elements may be arranged in either patterned or random array to form breakwaters.