On 29 January, the construction laboratory of the Center for Technological Innovation in Construction and Civil Engineering (CITEEC) conducted a controlled rupture test on a beam 12 meters long, 2 meters wide and 24 centimetres thick that weighed 14 tonnes. It was the largest beam tested to rupture in a European laboratory. The test was part of the HORVITAL project, coordinated by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC) and funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, in which the University of A Coruña, the Universitat Politècnica de València and the University of the Balearic Islands also participate. The project, led by the researcher Antoni Marí, a professor at the UPC’s Barcelona School of Civil Engineering, aims to study the properties of concrete structures to predict their strength and increase their service life.

The experiment was streamed live on the CITEEC's Youtube channel.

The prediction of shear strength is one of the most important topics in structural concrete. Some of the world’s most prestigious research groups are conducting research on this. Since HORVITAL’s tests are unique, the research team gCONS of the University of A Coruña launched an international scientific challenge: all specialists in the world were invited to submit their own predictions. Experts from other parts of Spain, Korea, Germany, the United States, Brazil or Croatia expressed an interest in the project.